Los Angeles County’s loan to the L.A. Opera; California’s Legislature losing its job appeal; L.A. Council’s pot ordinance

Too high a price for art

Re “County loan averts L.A. Opera tragedy,” Dec. 9

The taxpayer has now become an involuntary patron of the overspending Los Angeles Opera, with a last-minute loan via our illustrious county Board of Supervisors.

I am a reasonable man who enjoys the fine arts . . . especially when I can afford them. But in these troubled financial times, art institutions are a petty extravagance compared to lack of food, clothing and shelter as well as street repairs and other necessities.

Frankly, if the socially prominent rich citizens of this city cannot afford to sustain the L.A. Opera, why should the middle class and poor be required to pick up the slack?

Richard Stevens
Los Angeles

As a subscriber of the L.A. Opera from its first season until this year, I have to point out that the opera has brought its misery on itself through disastrous mismanagement.

The opera has overpaid second-rate creative personnel, has presented fewer fine productions and more duds in recent years, and has indebted itself by producing a ludicrously high-tech and expensive Ring Cycle, which has led many of us to finally throw in the towel in disgust and cancel our very expensive subscriptions.

Bailing out the opera is only a vindication of its practices and management. Better to have spent the money on homeless or housing services, I am saddened to say -- or at least insisted on management change as part of the deal.

Robert J. Wunsch
Los Angeles

Tough to attract good lawmakers

Re “Serving in the Legislature is losing its political luster,” Dec. 8

There is one more important factor that is dissuading good people from seeking elected office and causing those already elected to quit early -- the California proposition system.

Our elected officials no longer make laws. Instead, laws are made by people who know little more than the Madison Avenue-crafted sound bites they hear on television, and who vote from their feelings rather than after rational deliberation. As a result, the proposition system generally produces bad laws and straps the Legislature fiscally and legally.

Before we are able to again attract qualified people to run and stay in the Legislature, the California proposition system must end.

Robert C. Hamilton
Santa Monica

I was astounded by this line: “Audra Strickland (R-Thousand Oaks), who terms out of the Assembly in 2010, is running for Ventura County treasurer-tax collector next year, though she has no background in accounting or finance. The post has a salary of $150,445.”

How ridiculous is it that Strickland would even entertain running for this office when she has no experience to bring to the table? This is possibly one reason why our state is in trouble.

Would Strickland apply for a chief financial officer position with a Fortune 500 company when she knows she is not competent to do the job?

Just because the paycheck is fatter is not a good enough reason to run for this office.

Robert Weekes
El Centro

Development, not pot, is the issue

Re “L.A. acts to cap pot stores,” Dec. 9

Wouldn’t it be nice if the Los Angeles City Council spent as much time agonizing over the destruction of neighborhoods by overdevelopment as it has debating the placement and number of medical marijuana clinics it will allow in our city?

As a lifelong West Los Angeles resident, I am sickened by the dense, out-of-character development that is coming at us like an unmanned, speeding locomotive.

Are 70 enough? Are 186 too many? Council members talk about how many medical marijuana clinics hurt a neighborhood, but when a developer’s money is on the line, they’ll say that 25,000 new car trips a day won’t have any significant impact on traffic. City planning? In L.A., that’s an oxymoron. How do you spell “hypocrisy”? L-A C-I-T-Y C-O-U-N-C-I-L.

Marilyn Noyes
Los Angeles

Don’t discount Democrats’ value

Re “The real fat cat party,” Opinion, Dec. 8

A little perspective is needed in light of Jonah Goldberg’s latest fantasy musings and fractured logic regarding politics, economics and our nation’s history.

Here is a headline from the New York Times, Jan. 30, 1938: “Dr. Frank Declares New Deal ‘Fascist’; He Calls on Republicans to Fight Program Threatening to ‘Hitlerize’ Nation.”

Isn’t it amazing how little has changed, from Republicans calling FDR’s programs fascist to current GOP attacks on President Obama and his healthcare agenda?

Whether viewed from 30,000 feet, through a microscope or from the surface of the moon, it is obvious that there is a huge divide between Democrats and Republicans regarding the use of government to help all the people and not merely big business.

It’s true that Democrats receive money from big business, and in many cases this creates obstacles in pushing through a progressive agenda. However, without the Democratic Party, there would have been no New Deal, no Great Society and no chance for healthcare reform that will actually help the millions of Americans who either have no insurance or are inadequately protected by their current policies.

Lon Shapiro
Granada Hills

Goldberg fairly portrays big business as opportunistic in its willingness to make deals with any convenient devil. But when he posits General Electric’s collaboration with the “statist regime” of the FDR administration during the New Deal as an example, he sounds pretty wild-eyed.

Does he also scold GE for having collaborated with that same regime to create the industrial complex to fight the Axis powers?

As I strive to remind my radical friends on the left, Mr. Goldberg: In America, we elect representatives, not dictators.

Galen Van Rensselaer
Los Angeles

Taliban’s abuses can’t be ignored

Re “Sharing power with the Taliban,” Opinion, Dec. 9

Azeem Ibrahim’s Op-Ed article suggesting we should cut the Taliban some slack is appalling in its lack of respect for basic human rights.

Placing into law a code that allows Shiite husbands to deny sustenance to their wives if they do not satisfy them runs contrary to all laws regarding the decent treatment of human beings -- women included. How would the implementation of such a law be monitored? We are supposed to look the other way as our aid pours in?

Shame on The Times for publishing this confrontation to the logic of “liberal sensibilities.” We should never be a part of any such regime. We have to stand for who we are and what we believe.

Claudine Ajeti
Los Angeles