A JetBlue flight attendant; faith and Christianity today; skid row’s Project 50

First class crooks

Re “ JetBlue flight attendant gaining support on Web,” Aug. 11

The bankers and fund managers who caused the financial meltdown and subsequent bailout that will be harming the country for years to come are walking free and are basically unaffected by their gross negligence and corruption.

Steven Slater, the JetBlue flight attendant who after 20 years of service with several airlines found his last straw with an obnoxious passenger, could face seven years in prison for his actions. Legal reform, anyone?

Ladeen Wegner

Thousand Oaks

The wild blue yonder

Re “The workaday JetBlues,” Editorial, Aug. 11

As a recently retired high school teacher who couldn’t take advantage of an escape chute or a galley full of beer, I empathize with Slater.

I have always taught students that the proper use of curse words is for venting rage — rather than employing a gun for relief. Reaching for curse words in this instance was the safe way to go. His “Geronimo” to his airline career and slide to the tarmac were both harmless, not to be confused with criminal behavior that merits legal action against him.

Perhaps all work environments should be equipped with an escape hatch (perhaps sans alcohol) to relieve the pressures of daily dealings with the public. I’d rather forgive and forget Slater’s flagrant actions than see him behind bars.

Cynthia Sparks

Dana Point

Putting faith to the test

Re “The gap between faith and action,” Opinion, Aug. 8

The week before William Lobdell’s Op-Ed was published, 10 Christian medical personnel were slain in Afghanistan. There is faith in action.

We Christians are a flawed people. We try to conform to the tenets of the faith, but fail. We get divorced. We don’t tithe.

Lobdell is correct when he states that the mainline churches are losing membership. But the non-denominational churches continue to grow. How many Christians through their churches gave to the people after the South Asia tsunami, after Hurricane Katrina, after the earthquake in Haiti? Millions. How many Christians volunteer their time to help their fellow citizens? Millions. How many Christian missionaries, supported by their churches, go to India, Uganda and Korea to help with medical, educational and nutritional problems? Thousands.

Like Paul, we don’t do what we should and we do what we shouldn’t. We live in a difficult world, surrounded by temptations. Even though we are imperfect in our struggles, we continue to stand by the tenets of our faith and overcome our worldly temptations.

Claudia Cooley

Placentia

The “gap” between faith and action cited by Lobdell is a key attribute of “low church” Protestantism, whose tenets focus on faith, not works. To “born-again” Christians, belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior — not being kind or generous — is what saves you from hell. Nonbelievers are eternally damned.

The significant “actions” required of those who have “accepted” Christ are pious abstentions, such as not having premarital sex, and corollary deeds like voting against gay marriage. Individual failures to live righteously can be overcome by sustained faith; after all, “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.”

Though some people come to enlightenment on the faith-and-action gap, many more of the faithful take it in stride. Their calling is to save souls, not the world.

Robert P. Sechler

Seal Beach

Re “Leaving Christianity in the name of God,” Aug. 7

Anne Rice “quit being a Christian” 12 years after her return to Catholicism.

Being Catholic is more than a crucifix, statues and social issues. All Rice really needs to do is study the teachings of Jesus Christ.

I am an active Roman Catholic. My faith does not rise or fall on social issues. We are asked as followers of Jesus to love one another. It is that simple.

Maureen Conrey

Duarte

Homelessness and help

Re “A shot at hope on skid row,” Column, Aug. 8

Project 50’s no-strings-attached approach places a Band-Aid on a disease that requires surgery. Scarce taxpayer resources should support homelessness programs with proven track records.

My support of Project 50 was contingent on the promise that mandatory mental health and substance-abuse treatment would be included. The Times’ series revealed that this was not the case.

Indefinitely housing the mentally ill who refuse treatment, or are unable to consent to it, only to helplessly watch as they trade their welfare checks for drugs and alcohol to use in publicly-funded apartments is unconscionable.

Steve Lopez failed to acknowledge the variety of Los Angeles County’s successful programs for the homeless — many in the district that I represent. Since 2006, we have developed cost-effective public/private partnerships providing housing, meals, employment, healthcare and other services — coupled with mental healthcare and substance-abuse rehabilitation — to nearly 50,000 individuals and 20,000 families throughout the county, including the 62 in Project 50.

What is needed is fundamental reform of the state’s mental health laws to provide effective service to the mentally ill homeless, who are locked in a dysfunctional system of warehousing without healing. Anything less is immoral and irresponsible.

Michael D. Antonovich

Los Angeles

The writer is a Los Angeles County supervisor, 5th District.

The Times’ recent series on Project 50 is a powerful portrayal of the human face of homelessness. Through this groundbreaking work on skid row, we have seen what it takes to end homelessness: providing a permanent place to live, with access to supportive services.

This solution also saves money. As two recent cost studies from our organizations demonstrate, it’s cheaper to provide supportive housing than leave homeless people on the streets; taxpayers save up to $5,731 a month for every person moved from the streets into housing.

Supportive housing provides its residents with a path toward stability, removing them from the vicious cycle of life on the streets. We can see the success already, as 84% of Project 50’s clients are still housed and all are able to work toward stabilization through ongoing access to treatment.

We have a choice. We can either leave human beings on the streets to die, or help them recover. Fortunately, the humane choice is also the most cost-effective.

Elise Buik

Daniel Flaming

Los Angeles

The writers are president of United Way of Greater Los Angeles and president of the Economic Roundtable.

Choice words for a headline

Re “Good riddance to McChrystal,” Opinion, Aug. 8

I was appalled to see the Web headline “I told you so” for Mary Tillman’s thoughtful and well-crafted Op-Ed.

Your editors cut her submission for length — and we responded by asking that you not make it sound as though she was saying “I told you so.” So you headlined the piece, “I told you so.”

Fitting, for that’s exactly what the media has been doing to Pat Tillman since his enlistment — not only putting words in his mouth but choosing words that he’d be embarrassed by.

Having worked with her for three years on a documentary about her son, I know Mary Tillman to be compassionate, disciplined and measured. She is not snarky. Yet your Web headline reduced her column to the kind of thing a child would say. I think your readers can be trusted to take interest in an argument without such oversimplification.

Amir Bar-Lev

Brooklyn

The writer is director of “The Tillman Story.”

Flood control

Re “A river’s BFF,” Opinion, Aug. 7

What Patt Morrison calls “a 50-mile-long paved toilet of a drainage ditch” — the channelized Los Angeles River — I see as a great engineering accomplishment.

We had terrible flooding in large portions of L.A. until our flood control system was built. The concrete paved river is the foundation of that system. Fires and earthquakes are enough. Let’s not bring back the flooding. Let the paved river alone.

Gene Pomerantz

Tarzana