LACMA gets is giant “art” rock; Californians still debating an official’s mountain lion hunt; and the partisan divide in Congress and who’s to blame

LACMA’s rock party

Re “Mass attraction: A traveling 340-ton boulder draws thousands of fans into its orbit,” March 9, and “At journey’s end,” March 11

The journey of rock art on its path to LACMA is an unbelievable example of a can-do attitude. Someone said: “I want to transport a 340-ton rock through some of the most densely populated areas in the United States,” and someone responded: “I can do this.”

This effort is a marvel of engineering; I am in awe of the people who could successfully accomplish this enormous endeavor.

Mary J. Garrity

Torrance

Much has been made lately of public figures who are out of touch with the realities of the recession. Perhaps the LACMA Board of Trustees should be added to the list. It authorized the $10-million move of a “rock.”

As The Times pointed out, most of the expenses were from private donations, but that means the museum is paying part of the bill.

The museum’s board president is quoted as saying that the director of the museum is worth more than the $1 million he is receiving. Compare this to the salary of the president of the United States.

To those who are unemployed or have been fired from government jobs, it seems the museum is saying: “Let them eat dirt.”

Mark Elinson

Los Angeles

Call me old-fashioned, but I thought that icons were monuments that represented who we are and what we stand for.

So New York City has the Statue of Liberty, while Los Angeles has decided that our best representation is a boulder.

All this hoopla about a huge rock. Unbelievable.

Funny, I thought the museum was a center for cultural learning and for viewing priceless paintings by renowned artists.

People lack food, jobs and places to live, and the museum decides to spend all that money to drag a rock crosstown.

OnNew Year’s Eve, TV stations need a symbol to represent Los Angeles. No problem — just film at the rock.

Joan Davidson

Palos Verdes Estates

Kudos to all those who worked to successfully transport the boulder, to the Angelenos who made a happy event out of it and to Director Michael Govan for injecting new life into LACMA.

Now that he’s acquired so much clout and goodwill, it would be wonderful if Govan would invest his energies in developing and presenting equally ambitious works by female artists.

Sarah Tamor

Santa Monica

Still hot about a dead lion

Re “Hunters show support for panel chairman,” March 8

I’m not as concerned with the politics and the questionable — or perhaps improbable — threat the mountain lion might have posed.

What I find more offensive and disturbing is the specific immorality of the shooting incident followed by the obnoxious and repugnant photograph of Daniel Richards gloating behind such a gorgeous specimen.

I am disheartened by how anyone can revel over killing such a magnificent animal — and then further coarsen the act with a photograph of the dead beast.

It may be debatable whether we have the right to kill wild animals for our safety and for the protection of other animals, but what is undebatable is that mankind enjoys the sport of killing — the photograph is proof of that.

Giuseppe Mirelli

Los Angeles

Richards, California’s top Fish and Game commissioner, is in conflict with his position.

He not only flaunted the sport of killing cougars; I believe his background as a commercial real estate developer is a conflict of interest with the mission of the commission he heads: to protect wildlife and habitat.

Richards needs to pack his gun and move to Idaho.

Carla Bollinger

West Hills

What if a person charged with enforcing U.S. drug laws posted a Facebook picture gleefully showing herself using drugs in Amsterdam, where such drugs are

legal?

As in the case of the Fish and Game chief’s mountain lion hunt, this would call into question her commitment to the mandate of her taxpayer-funded employment

and raise issues as to her fitness for that employment.

Participating in activities that are legal for John Q. Public shows questionable judgment when done by officials charged with enforcing prohibitions on those activities in a jurisdiction where they are not legal.

Jean Arnwine

Altadena

Re “Capitol Journal: A Fish and Game faux pas,” March 8

The bigger point is, just when it is OK to kill an animal?

Unless you are a strict vegetarian, you eat animals. Some people kill their food. Others let factories do it for them. Who has the higher moral ground?

Columnist George Skelton acknowledges that he’s “shot birds and mammals — never cats” — for much of his life. I, on the other hand, kill fish, and am very careful to take only what we eat and see to it that the rest are released, and I am careful to observe limits set by the state to protect and conserve the stock.

So my question is, unless you’re a strict vegetarian, how can you put someone else down for doing what you do — when the only difference is you pay others to get the blood on their hands for you?

Geoffrey Graves

Laguna Beach

I’ve known — and respected — hunters. They earn every kill they make with their own time, skill and sweat. Walking in and taking aim on an animal you’ve paid someone else to track, and then pulling the trigger on an animal treed by dogs you haven’t trained, is not hunting.

Ellen Zunino

Monrovia

Compromise isn’t very likely

Re “Snowe’s alarming forecast,” Opinion, March 9

Columnist Ronald Brownstein omits two key factors in the partisanship we now see in Congress.

First, the increased gerrymandering of districts based on sophisticated computer analysis has reduced competitive elections, and second, campaign finance laws have restricted donations to individual candidates, thus increasing dependency on party financial support. A candidate must toe the party line or risk removal or reduction of party financial support in his/her reelection.

John C. McKinney

Cerritos

The political standoff in Congress is a very strong argument for seriously reducing the size of the federal government.

With less power, they will have to reduce the ideological battles.

Virginia Prcic

Westlake Village

Brownstein is being disingenuous at best in describing the results of the study by the University of Georgia’s Keith Poole.

If you actually check out the graph showing the change in polarization, you see that the most extremely liberal Democrats have been consistently that liberal since about 1975.

Today’s moderate Republicans now equal the most extremely conservative Republicans of 1975, while today’s most conservative Republicans are almost off the chart.

The widening of the ideological gap is almost entirely on the Republican side, as that party has every year catered more and more to its extreme right-wing evangelical base.

Yes, compromise is important, but the Republicans of today are so far right that, sadly, any compromise takes us further to the conservative side than to a middle ground.

Susan Molyneux

Manhattan Beach