Bad Attitude

If you don't believe in horoscopes, you're in step with science. But that's not the same as saying the season of your birth cannot affect your fate. Hundreds of studies, published in peer-reviewed journals, have suggested that the month a person is born in is associated with characteristics such as temperament, longevity and susceptibility to certain diseases. Scientists say that even though some of these findings are probably spurious - if you dig around in data, you will eventually find correlations just by chance - other effects are very likely real, triggered not by the alignment of the planets but by exposures during prenatal and early postnatal lives.

If you don't believe in horoscopes, you're in step with science. But that's not the same as saying the season of your birth cannot affect your fate. Hundreds of studies, published in peer-reviewed journals, have suggested that the month a person is born in is associated with characteristics such as temperament, longevity and susceptibility to certain diseases. Scientists say that even though some of these findings are probably spurious - if you dig around in data, you will eventually find correlations just by chance - other effects are very likely real, triggered not by the alignment of the planets but by exposures during prenatal and early postnatal lives.

Russia's Larissa Lazutina finally has an individual Olympic gold medal. Give an assist to her bad attitude. Lazutina, after frustrating near-misses at Albertville and Lillehammer, won the 5-kilometer classical cross-country race Tuesday at the Nagano Games. Slicing through a heavy snow, Lazutina gave Russia its 100th Winter Games gold medal and added to the silver medal she won in the 15-kilometer race Sunday.

First of two parts If screenwriter Babs Greyhosky was penning this episode of her life, the young woman she calls her "goddaughter" would be at home with her children right now. But managing the action in the real world isn't as simple as a storyline on TV. It began with a phone call from a panicked young woman who was locked up at the sheriff's station in La Crescenta. Deputies had raided her South Los Angeles house looking for drugs and guns linked to an Altadena gang.

Fourth-year cornerback Tim McKyer has been suspended indefinitely because of an insubordinate attitude, San Francisco 49er Vice President John McVay announced Sunday. McKyer was on the inactive list and apparently took exception to being benched. McVay would not go into details. He said the disciplinary action was cleared with the league.

In "Politically Speaking, It's Greasy Kid Stuff" (Commentary, June 26), Crispin Sartwell claims that "no one could possibly disagree with the sentiment" of the phrase, "No child left behind." I disagree. Public schools need to have and use the authority to leave behind any and all students who disrupt the education of others. Where such disruptive students abound, no child advances. It's great if an educational boot camp or some other specialized program is available, but if not, the troublemakers must nevertheless be removed.

The Wonder Stuff's debut album is called "The Eight Legged Groove Machine." Saturday night at the Club With No Name (Hollywood branch), it was more like the One Man Hostility King. Malcolm Treece, the English quartet's singer, played the prototypal angry young Limey, deriding the audience as "Rick Astley fans" and hurtling expletive-filled condemnations of his host country. Question: Does he complain as righteously about the American money he's collecting? Despite this attitude problem, the band did work wonders: bright, cheery harmonies and crashing melodies that deftly incorporated a whole history of smart, psychedelic Brit-pop, from the acid halls of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd to the chain-saw pop of the Buzzcocks to the manic thrill-ride of That Petrol Emotion.

Leo Carrillo State Park is a fine little collection of campsites tucked into a canyon a few miles north of Malibu. It offers hiking trails, hot showers and a small store that sells beer and wine for those who prefer lying drunk in the dirt to hiking happily through God's mountains. The park is obviously not meant for people who enjoy solitary backpacking in Alaska while living off roots and grubs, but it is ideal for weekend outings and family gatherings.

To President Bush, the trouble with the nation's lagging economy sometimes seems to boil down to a case of bad attitude--consumers getting the jitters from listening to media doomsayers and the Democrats. "There ought to be, in my view, given the economic place where we stand now, more confidence," the President says. "It's a good time to buy a house," he exhorts. "It's a good time to buy a car. Interest rates are substantially lower." George Bush, meet Chuck Fiegle.

It may be true, as "The A-Team's" Col. John "Hannibal" Smith insists, that "overkill is underrated," but you wouldn't know it from this film. Overly long, over-complicated and overflowing with what sounds like billions of bullets and beaucoup broken glass, this film version of the hit 1980s TV series about soldiers of fortune is an underwhelming experience. I pity the fool, as TV star Mr. T might say, who mistakes this for genuine entertainment. That may sound unduly harsh, especially for a movie that was never intended as an Oscar contender.

It may be true, as "The A-Team's" Col. John "Hannibal" Smith insists, that "overkill is underrated," but you wouldn't know it from this film. Overly long, over-complicated and overflowing with what sounds like billions of bullets and beaucoup broken glass, this film version of the hit 1980s TV series about soldiers of fortune is an underwhelming experience. I pity the fool, as TV star Mr. T might say, who mistakes this for genuine entertainment. That may sound unduly harsh, especially for a movie that was never intended as an Oscar contender.

"The Bounty Hunter," the new action caper starring Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler as dueling exes, plays to everything that turned one of the "Friends" six-pack into a lip-gloss superstar. First to be exploited is Aniston's perk power. When that fails, the second line of defense is a close-up of that really great hair, which doesn't so much make for a movie as a running photo op. Somehow Aniston is better at looking sexy than acting sexy. And though there were many reports of just how hot a couple she and Butler were off screen during filming, none of that translated after director Andy Tennant yelled "action."

LAS VEGAS -- The pop star has an electric guitar in her hands. It's pink and glittery, and Avril Lavigne is strumming only a few simple chords as she sings, leaving her band to keep the volume way up onstage at the Pearl Concert Theater at the Palms Hotel & Casino. She's not a teen anymore but is still quick with a pop hook and is as striking and glamorous as any Britney-Mandy-Christina on the radio. Except for one thing: She wants it loud. Now she's singing to the excited pop-punk riffs of "I Always Get What I Want," a song from 2004, shaking her head to the raging melodies and guitars, and singing from the toughest side of her voice.

THE flight from LAX to Denver was minutes from takeoff when a blast of noise erupted across the aisle from me. A girl, about 5 years old, was watching a raucous cartoon on a cranked-up DVD player, without headphones. Swiftly, a flight attendant approached her mother. "Ma'am, you'll have to ask your daughter to use the headphones," she said. The mom looked frazzled and said, "I did, and she said, 'No.' " As some nearby passengers stifled giggles and others looked exasperated, the attendant persuaded the preschooler to don her headphones.

Of all the defining moments for the Angels this season, one of the most critical days in pointing the team toward its first World Series occurred last year. On Dec. 27, 2001, the Angels traded first baseman Mo Vaughn to the New York Mets for pitcher Kevin Appier. Vaughn had signed a six-year, $80-million contract with the Angels, the richest deal in franchise history, but injuries and controversy marked the first three years of the deal.

In "Politically Speaking, It's Greasy Kid Stuff" (Commentary, June 26), Crispin Sartwell claims that "no one could possibly disagree with the sentiment" of the phrase, "No child left behind." I disagree. Public schools need to have and use the authority to leave behind any and all students who disrupt the education of others. Where such disruptive students abound, no child advances. It's great if an educational boot camp or some other specialized program is available, but if not, the troublemakers must nevertheless be removed.

Citing what he called a bad attitude, Gull executive Don Waddell released right wing Brent Sapergia, the team's second leading goal scorer, Tuesday. The release coincided with the expiration of his 25-game contract. It is the second consecutive season that Waddell, vice president/general manager and coach of the Gulls, has cut Sapergia after an apparently productive start.

LAS VEGAS -- The pop star has an electric guitar in her hands. It's pink and glittery, and Avril Lavigne is strumming only a few simple chords as she sings, leaving her band to keep the volume way up onstage at the Pearl Concert Theater at the Palms Hotel & Casino. She's not a teen anymore but is still quick with a pop hook and is as striking and glamorous as any Britney-Mandy-Christina on the radio. Except for one thing: She wants it loud. Now she's singing to the excited pop-punk riffs of "I Always Get What I Want," a song from 2004, shaking her head to the raging melodies and guitars, and singing from the toughest side of her voice.

The old American aphorism that says the road will make a bum out of anyone does not apply to James Ellroy. Fresh and fit, the bestselling author of 15 books, including "L.A. Confidential," surfaced recently in this town two hours from London. Five European countries and a month of hotel rooms behind him, Ellroy was on a two-week blitz of Britain, hustling his new novel, "The Cold Six Thousand," a 700-page doorstop to be published in the United States on Tuesday.

When you look at the type of season Dave McKienzie is having for Long Beach State's volleyball team, it's difficult to fathom the struggles he encountered last year. You see the staggering statistics compiled this season by the 1997 Huntington Beach High graduate, and you can't imagine that he is the same player who sat on the bench during his team's biggest match last season, drinking lemonade while scanning the crowd, oblivious and unprepared when coaches called him to action.