latimes.com - Print Edition

Weighing the benefits of a mammography

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Public anger at new recommendations is understandable but misdirected. While the latest data should be evaluated, regular screenings ought to be an individual decision.

Although we all would like to think that public health pronouncements are the unmitigated truth about any issue, rarely is that the case. We can only give our best guess, based on the current available data and our current understanding of the disease. Luckily, research continues, hypotheses are reformulated and new recommendations are made.

Immigration reform, again

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Obama and the Democrats want another crack at it, but nothing is certain.

If any one person embodies the complex politics of immigration reform, it is Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. As governor of Arizona in 2007, she signed one of the nation's toughest state immigration laws, the Legal Arizona Workers Act, which imposed harsh penalties on businesses that knowingly employed undocumented workers. Now, as the nation's top immigration official, she will be asked to weigh in on a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of that law. The case comes before the U.S. Supreme Court as Washington once again revives efforts to overhaul the nation's immigration laws.

Ft. Hood and the bugaboo of 'political correctness'

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Look deeper at a killer and what do you usually find? An angry, crazy person.

The Ft. Hood massacre was not the first violent tragedy that conservatives have blamed on political correctness. But it might be the first one in which they actually have a point.

A missing woman and the law's lost compassion

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The disappearance of Mitrice Richardson after being released from a sheriff's substation underscores the need for better procedures to ensure suspects' safety.

Twenty-four-year-old Mitrice Richardson of South Los Angeles walked out of the Malibu/Lost Hills sheriff’s station in the wee hours of Sept. 17 and has been missing ever since . Sheriff Lee Baca insists that deputies followed procedures to the letter: Richardson, who was accused of refusing to pay her bill at a high-end Malibu restaurant and possessing a small amount of marijuana, insisted on leaving after being booked and released, despite invitations to spend the night in an empty cell or in the station's lobby. Deputies at the station had declared her safe to go because she didn't appear to be a threat to herself or anyone else. Nevertheless, the fact remains that she was 40 miles from home in the dead of night with no purse, cash or cellphone, no buses available for hours, and her car locked in a garage she couldn't pay.

In El Salvador, a grim reflection, and a glimmer of hope

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The president has bestowed the country's highest honor on six Jesuit priests massacred 20 years ago, more evidence that peaceful change is possible, if slow to come.

Six Jesuit priests rousted from their beds in the night lay face down on the lawn, arms still stretched over their heads in a futile gesture of self-defense, skulls shattered by bullets. The University of Central America had been an intellectual oasis in El Salvador's civil war, but in the middle of a guerrilla offensive on the capital, the army moved in to kill those it saw as the brains behind the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front.

Free speech: It's the ACLU's deal

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

For Americans liberal and conservative, the organization continues to support their right to speak.

The American Civil Liberties Union is vilified by conservatives as a left-wing lobby disguised as an advocate for free speech for all. And certainly it's true that many supporters of the organization are liberal in their political views. But to its credit, the ACLU often puts its commitment to free expression above those opinions. The latest example is its support for a student group at the University of Nevada, Reno, that invited Jim Gilchrist, an extreme opponent of illegal immigration, to take part in a panel discussion.

A Luddite in the library

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Search engines are all well and good, but sometimes the best place to find something is a library.

Iam a Luddite. I refuse to use an electric toothbrush or can opener. I threw away our plug-in teakettle. I only read actual books; I don't listen to them on CD while I drive, and I can't imagine scrolling through "The Portrait of a Lady." But I am a lazy Luddite. I don't wash my clothes on a rock; I love my TiVo; and when it comes to research, I think nothing beats the Internet.

Permanent water wisdom

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Southern California has embraced water conservation, but it must be more than a temporary response to drought.

California did it. This month, the Legislature passed a package of bills that includes a statewide urban water conservation goal of 20% by 2020. We have confronted the kind of conservation that will be needed to secure the water supply of Los Angeles, and the state, in the face of population growth and climate change.

Understanding China

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The West has gotten it wrong on China for decades -- even as it embraces a market economy, it has shunned Western-style freedoms. And its power is only growing.

The dynamics of President Obama's trip to China were markedly different from those evident on visits made by President Clinton and President George W. Bush. This time the Chinese made clear that they were unwilling even to discuss issues such as human rights or free speech. Why? The relationship between the countries has changed: America feels weak and China strong in their bilateral ties. This is not a temporary shift that will reverse itself once the U.S. has escaped from its mountain of debt. Rather, it is the expression of a deep and progressive shift in the balance of power between the two nations, one that is giving the Chinese -- though studiously cautious in their approach -- a rising sense of self-confidence.

Monogamy isn't easy, naturally

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Swapping partners in the animal world is more common than once thought. Even birds do it. But while polygamy may be in our genes, fidelity has its benefits.

Right-wing pro-marriage advocates are correct: Monogamy is definitely under siege. But not from uncloseted polyamorists, adolescent "hook-up" advocates, radical feminists, Godless communists or some vast homosexual conspiracy. The culprit is our own biology.