‘Helicopter parents; America and Muslims; the economy and ‘bubbles’

So long, folks

Re “Colleges’ lesson for parents: Let go,” Aug. 29

The psychologist’s advice to “let go” may not be acceptable to parents who are spending tens of thousands of dollars for an education in a fractured university system in which their children are unable to get the classes they need to graduate.

Russell W. Clampitt

Los Angeles

I had to laugh when I read about “helicopter parents.”

At age 12, neither of my parents accompanied me on a two-day train journey to boarding school from Johannesburg to Cape Town, South Africa.

If I remembered, I wrote letters home during the year. There were no phone calls allowed, e-mail hadn’t been invented, and there was no texting or tweets (whatever they are).

After 10 months, it was time for my two-day journey back; the adventure was priceless.

I can’t imagine why parents must be so

involved with considerably older children. Won’t they be surprised when the offspring arrives back

to take over his or her old room?

Phyllis Donaldson

Santa Monica

America’s Muslims

Re “Anti-mosque or anti-Islam?,” Opinion, Aug. 27

I am a liberal, but I am also alarmed at Islamic growth around the world. Wherever Islam becomes the dominant religion of a society, freedoms as Americans know them cease to exist. There is no place for democracy under Sharia law.

Moderate Muslims found in America would likely be viewed similarly to non-Muslims in an Islamic state. The dilemma for a free world is how to protect democratic freedoms from dangers tolerated by those very freedoms.

Our Constitution is clear: Building mosques should be allowed. But will American mosques serve as examples of a tolerant Islam, or will they foster Sharia law and incite terrorism against non-Muslims?

Phil Beauchamp

Chino Hills

If American Muslims feel so strongly about putting up a mosque near ground zero and see that the majority of Americans oppose it there, why don’t they act like true Americans and construct the mosque a few blocks away?

This would be a true sign of peace, of Muslims wanting to integrate into American society, and not cause such an uproar. To hold so tight to the belief that they can put it anywhere they want, in the name of religious liberty, is to separate themselves from the very people they want to be a part of.

David Mazer

Sherman Oaks

Newt Gringich compares building a mosque near ground zero to having a Nazi sign near the Holocaust museum.

What a terrible example of misusing the Holocaust/Nazi comparison. A mosque is not a “sign,” it is a house of prayer. Muslims who practice their faith are not Nazis.

Where’s the condemnation from the ADL or the Wiesenthal Center? Are not American Muslims also entitled to protection?

David Perel

Los Angeles

Evidently the Americans who are skeptical that American Muslims are nonviolent, responsible citizens are ignorant of the history of Christians over the last few hundred years. Adherents of the various brands of Christianity have been massacring one another with abandon, depending on which brand is in control and has the power.

Many of the founders of this country had the right idea about religion and chose to proscribe the establishment of a national religion in the Constitution. Belief without proof is a slippery slope, no matter the variety.

David Perlman

Laguna Beach

Ronald Brownstein, among other things, said, “That could make it much tougher for Obama, or any of his successors, to improve America’s image in the Muslim world.”

I respectfully submit that Brownstein’s premise is exactly backward.

Who we are and what we stand for is an open book. People all over the world, including Muslims, dream of coming to America. There is little or no reciprocal desire of non-Muslims to immigrate to Muslim-dominated countries.

It is Islam, specifically, that urgently needs to improve its image to the non-Muslim world.

This isn’t being anti-Islam. That’s being patriotic, pro-American. And if being so doesn’t improve our image in the Muslim world, so be it.

Curtis A. Davis

Newbury Park

Bubble trouble

Re “A bubble that’s still trying to deflate,” Aug. 28

Tom Petruno’s piece was right on the mark. All the attempts to try to reinflate clearly unsustainable housing prices are perhaps the most blatant example of our lobby-driven policy machine’s tendency to socialize costs and privatize benefits — in this case, tapping the taxpayers for the absurdly overpriced house prices resulting from the recent industry-driven bubble.

There is only one sustainable solution to housing prices, and that is to let the free market operate and find the price based on supply and demand rather than financial gimmicks.

The finance/homebuilder/Realtor industry fixated solely on inflating house prices has too great a grip on our public policy. Their lobbies should be replaced by public interest groups, and their incentives should be tied to the complexity of a deal (they should be paid hourly like the rest of the service economy) instead of based on the size of a mortgage.

Dave Lake

Thousand Oaks

Petruno reports that “a new program will offer no-interest loans of up to $50,000 for unemployed homeowners to help them make their mortgage payments until they find work.”

Isn’t that what got us into the housing bubble in the first place, when the government said more people should be able to qualify for home loans and encouraged more loans to be made available to more people? People who made low or no down payments? We know what happened to those home mortgages.

Exactly when and how will these new loans be paid back if these unemployed homeowners do not obtain jobs at all, or get low-paying jobs, or if they spend the money on something other then their mortgage payments? I’ll tell you what happens: You and I will pay.

Orrin Turbow

Oxnard

Excellent analysis by Petruno. Seems like “nobody knows nothing.” Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and his coterie are fighting the 1929 Depression; this one is a whole new ballgame.

Government attempts to maintain housing prices and stem foreclosures have proved futile. Many families are living in crowded rental apartments, paying exorbitant rates, waiting for the opportunity to buy homes if the prices drop low enough to make a purchase possible.

Now that the bubble has burst, let the prices settle to true market value. Why pour billions of taxpayer money into trying to prevent it? We can’t.

Morrie Markoff

Silver Lake

Petruno’s column about how to deal with the struggling housing market is overly simplistic and ill-informed.

The purpose of loan modifications, principal reductions and negative equity refinances is not to “bail out” borrowers who made bad investment decisions and artificially prop up real estate values. It’s to help keep millions of families from becoming homeless, with destroyed credit or forcing them to pull their children out of school and relocate. It’s to keep entire neighborhoods from becoming blighted and turning into ghost towns. And it’s to keep banks themselves out of the property management business, something that they are egregiously ill-

equipped for.

Or perhaps Petruno really believes that the sight of formerly middle-class families huddled around a fire burning in a barrel on skid row is just the imagery we need to get our economy back on track.

Jason Perrault

Studio City