Faith and deeds

Re “Romney’s Mormon faith is absent from campaign,” Dec. 8

Mitt Romney, a cautious, experienced campaigner, calculates that it profits him to be virtually silent about what is best about him -- the many kind, generous, admirably humane deeds he selflessly performed as a bishop for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

But at the same time, he proudly and loudly trumpets his “success” as a businessman, which resulted in putting many of his fellow Americans out of work.

Frederick Douglass said it best: “At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.”

Ronald Rubin

Topanga

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Nothing special

Re “Ridley-Thomas tied to Coliseum expenditure,” Dec. 8

The article misleadingly asserts that I used my position on the L.A. Memorial Coliseum Commission to “score” football tickets on the “public dime.”

Two tickets to an NFL game were billed to the Coliseum without my knowledge. The purchase -- not a gift -- should not have been expensed to the Coliseum. As the interim chief executive wrote in a Sept. 12 letter, I was never informed that an expense report had been submitted, and I had not received an invoice for the expense.

The story implies that the matter came to light only because of a Times records request in August. The expense was actually found by a financial staffer in July.

There are genuine concerns regarding past management of the Coliseum, but this isn’t one of them. The Coliseum found an invoice that wasn’t forwarded to me. When it was, I paid it. That’s not sensational, but it’s the truth.

Mark Ridley-Thomas

Los Angeles

The writer is Los Angeles County supervisor, 2nd District.

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Sounding off about the 1%

Re “What’s so awful about the 1%?,” Opinion, Dec. 4

Bradley Schiller repeats a tired conservative argument: The rich are deserving because they are creative and work hard, and the real problem is government.

He forgets the war against unions waged by companies like Wal-Mart, which has enriched its billionaire owners but left its employees underpaid; the systematic exportation of good jobs to other countries; and the bankers who have paid themselves billions while forcing millions out of their homes.

What the Occupy people are protesting is this grotesque accumulation of riches in the hands of a few while the situation of the rest of us is getting worse. This is not the America that won World War II.

Jean Lecuyer

Los Angeles

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Occupy Wall Street is not about disliking entrepreneurs. Nor is it about the “futility in grappling with a weak economy.”

It’s about the clear connection between

economic inequality and social injustice. Our public policies have been engineered to favor the wealthy at the expense of the common good, even though there is no truth to the voodoo economics of the trickle-down theory.

The nation is at its strongest when the middle class is strongest. Now the party of “family values” wants to weaken all of the institutions that made the middle class strong.

With capitalism disengaged from morality, Occupy was inevitable.

Bruce Babcock

Glendale

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Schiller listed a number of billionaires with whom he claims the Occupy crowd would have an affinity. However, his first example is a poor one.

Despite all the positive eulogies for Steve Jobs, and despite his technological innovations, Jobs oversaw Apple as it earned billions partly by outsourcing manufacturing to cheaper foreign labor. Because Apple set high prices for its products despite their low manufacturing cost, the company sits on an ocean of cash.

Had Jobs felt anything but sheer greed, thousands of well-paying U.S. jobs could have been created by a still-profitable Apple.

Why would the 99% care to hang out with this guy?

Howard Prince

Garden Grove

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There’s nothing inherently wrong with the 1%. But the elites didn’t get to where they are in a vacuum. Jobs didn’t invent the computer; what he and Steve Wozniak did was combine available parts into a product for an emerging market. That certainly took creativity and ambition, but they couldn’t have done it without all the work, products and infrastructure funded both privately and by the government.

Isaac Newton said he stood on the shoulders of giants. Could Jobs have accomplished the same thing if he had grown up in El Salvador or Kenya? Warren Buffett asked that question with respect to his own success; his answer was, probably not.

Americans, through a unity of purpose that has existed since the founding of this country, have created the cradle in which success can flourish.

John Trask

Thousand Oaks

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Stem cell studies

Re “Stem cell agency needs a self-exam,” Column,

Dec. 7

Michael Hiltzik draws starkly different conclusions about Geron Corp.’s decision to stop its stem cell research than The Times’ Nov. 21 article. That piece noted that Geron also has potential cancer therapies that are further along in development and that the company made a business decision to focus exclusively on those therapies. Geron made clear that the stem cell science was sound.

The Food and Drug Administration had reviewed the Geron trial and allowed it to go forward, and another clinical trial with embryonic stem cells is ongoing. Hundreds of promising projects are in clinical trials using other types of stem cells as well. The California Institute of Regenerative Medicine alone has 43 major awards progressing toward therapies for 26 diseases.

Geron was but one such project. The Geron decision, though clearly lamentable and understandably devastating to patients, will not stop the train; it has already left the station.

Jonathan Thomas

Los Angeles

The writer chairs the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine’s governing board.

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Bass responds

Re “Criminalizing silence,” Editorial, Dec. 6

The Times mischaracterizes a bipartisan bill that I introduced that would require adults to report to law enforcement or child protective service agencies any child sex abuse they witness.

It is unfathomable that an adult would not intervene when a child is being harmed, but as we’ve witnessed recently, we cannot rely on an individual’s morality to do what is right.

This bill states nothing about blindly incarcerating individuals; rather, it aims to narrowly target child sexual abuse witnesses who fail to stop a child from being continuously harmed. California led the way in protecting children from abuse with similar legislation that was signed in 2000. Currently, 18 states require that adults report to authorities, many of which only exact mis-

demeanor penalties.

At a time when Congress is criticized for not collaborating, this is an example of where Democrats and Republicans can come together to protect vulnerable children.

Rep. Karen Bass

(D-Los Angeles)

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Marshall plan

Re “Shocked by lavish spending,” Column, Dec. 7

As I read Steve Lopez’s piece and a separate news article on the $1.2 million paid to ousted L.A. Housing Authority chief Rudolf Montiel, I reflected on the seemingly endless stream of Times articles over the last 18 months concerning public corruption.

Then I thought of Army Gen. George C. Marshall, who after his public service ended declined to write and publish his memoirs, as he believed it was improper to personally profit from public service.

We have come full circle. The only reason people enter “public service” today is to maximize the profit they can glean from an elected or appointed post. Where this will end?

Ronald Magnuson

Long Beach

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Gay rights

Re “A call for global gay rights,” Dec. 7

Explain to me how Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton could say -- with a straight face -- that all countries should equate gay rights with human rights? Has Clinton taken a good look at gay rights in her own country?

Though it is true that some states recognize same-sex marriage, the majority of states do not. How about equating gay rights to human rights in this country -- all of this country?

James Vance

Long Beach