Common Sense

Want to fool merchants with a fake ID? Hack someone's text messages? Or how about tracking where your co-workers are, without their knowing it? There's an app for that. The explosion in smartphone and tablet applications that enable people to check the weather, follow their stocks and play Words With Friends has a dark side: apps that facilitate questionable if not outright illegal behavior. Apple's App Store, for example, offers Drivers License software that promises "unlimited access to realistic-looking licenses" for all 50 states.

In"Lovely Molly,"a young woman moves with her new husband back into her family's empty old house. She immediately begins behaving strangely, as if the house itself exerts some mysterious power - whether she is being overtaken by bad memories and old habits or something supernatural is initially unclear. If the story sounds somewhat similar to the recent Elizabeth Olsen vehicle"Silent House,"it is, and unfortunately, "Lovely Molly" and its star, newcomer Gretchen Lodge, only suffer in comparison.

Whether you're treating a chronic condition or trying to stock your medicine cabinet with the basics, medications can be pricey. To cut costs, you may be considering splitting pills or taking a medication after it has expired (though staring down a bottle of Tylenol purchased during the Clinton administration can make even staunch stomachs uneasy). You may well be wondering if cutting pills or ignoring use-by dates is really safe. As if often the case in medicine, that's a simple question with a long answer.

Upon finding himself trapped in a Lucite coffin in the opening minutes of the silly thriller "Brake," Secret Service agent Jeremy Reins (Stephen Dorff) figures he's being shaken down for his outstanding gambling debts. Upon finding yourself trapped with Dorff for 91 minutes, you may correctly remember that Rodrigo Cortés' 2010 morality play "Buried" took the same, single-setting premise to places far more interesting than the empty cynicism found here. Agent Reins quickly learns that the stakes are bigger than those at the card games he frequents.

Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" is one of the ur-texts of American democracy, the match that lighted the fuse of independence. First published anonymously in January 1776, Paine's pamphlet became a colonial bestseller. In a would-be nation of 4 million, some 150,000 copies were sold. That's the equivalent of selling 12 million copies in today's United States. And influential?

While reading the newspaper Sept. 4 and getting annoyed at the stupidity of various politicians, I was reminded of an idea I put forth some time ago. It elicited hoots of derision from my nearest and dearest, but I believe its time has come. This country should establish a Panel of Common Sense, staffed by laymen with impeccable judgment, such as myself. We would have members of various racial, religious and ethnic groups with hands-on experience in many fields. Anyone with "expertise" derived from research or political office would be automatically excluded.

Continuing his campaign for an overhaul of the nation's healthcare system, President Obama promised his audience here in western Colorado on Saturday that his effort would create a "common-sense set of consumer protections" for Americans with health insurance. In an effort to soothe concerns amid the contentious healthcare debate, the president pledged that new legislation would ease the burdens of average consumers by capping the amount insurance companies can charge annually for out-of-pocket costs like co-pays and deductibles.

Re "Afghans say U.S. is off track," Oct. 1 Excellent article. As an old anthropology/linguistics undergrad back in the late '50s, I agree with the Afghans' opinions. I sure hope President Obama has smart enough advisors to realize all of the complexities; we should talk with Afghans and the Taliban -- unlike Bush's team. Lance Fogan Valencia :: Mark Magnier's article got it right. In order to be successful, the allied effort in Afghanistan must rely on input from the knowledge, wants and needs of the average people.

Re "A ban on some raw oysters from the Gulf Coast? Shucks," Nov. 10, and "Raw feelings over oyster ban," Nov. 11 The two stories about a proposed ban on oysters harvested in the summer reflect an old adage that one should never eat oysters in months that don't have an "r" in them. ("Like Argust" is the punch line.) This was considered common sense when I was a kid. There's even a reference to it in James Joyce's "Ulysses." Legislation would not be needed if the possible consequences described at the end of Tuesday's story were widely promulgated -- that "Vibrio blood infections can be almost unfathomably gruesome, resulting in fever, chills, septic shock and blistering lesions."

Orange County band Common Sense headlines a local-rock bill tonight at the Galaxy just as its latest album, "State of the Nation, Now and Then," hits stores. Reviewing for The Times, Mike Boehm says that pop-reggae "can't be done much better than this. . . .

Twenty-eight years ago, I was a producer on a film based in Tokyo when, just before the Thanksgiving holiday, I was called back to America to deal with a production emergency. The company I worked for was based in Marin County in Northern California, and there I found myself all alone on Thanksgiving Day. Wallowing in self-pity, I took myself off to one of the charming villages of Marin County, found a Country Kitchen-like restaurant, sat down to the Thanksgiving Special, and gave absolutely no thanks for the mendacious accountant who had run off with some of the production's funds.

With Congress lurching toward adjournment after a year rich in drama but poor in accomplishment, lawmakers have to decide whether to renew a handful of tax and spending measures that could have significant effects on the economy. Their job is complicated by the uncertain state of the recovery; although the housing market remains grim, there are hints in other sectors that the economy is gaining steam. We think it's too early yet for Congress to stop trying to stimulate growth, but Washington still needs to be smart about how it does so. And some of the proposals coming out of the White House and Capitol Hill don't pass that test.

Here are some things Californians deserve from their power providers: a fair and reasonable price for electricity, household bills that are easy to understand and based on the actual cost of producing power, and rates that encourage conservation yet don't punish low-income customers who can't afford to make their homes more energy efficient. The price of a kilowatt hour should speak, and this is what it should be saying: Don't waste energy, and if you can avoid it, don't run your dishwasher or do your laundry at times when California's power plants are already straining to meet demand.

From Boulder, Colo. -- Sitting on a bench outside Heritage Hall on a warm late-summer day, Matt Barkley told me he would leave the USC early for the NFL only if he finished his junior season strong. "I want to put myself in a position to go out with a bang," he told me. Nearly three months later, on a chilly fall Friday night in the mountains, Barkley's play continued to make a noise so distinct, there is only way to describe it. Bang! Barkley threw a school-record six touchdown pass in a 42-17 victory over Colorado.

Whether you're treating a chronic condition or trying to stock your medicine cabinet with the basics, medications can be pricey. To cut costs, you may be considering splitting pills or taking a medication after it has expired (though staring down a bottle of Tylenol purchased during the Clinton administration can make even staunch stomachs uneasy). You may well be wondering if cutting pills or ignoring use-by dates is really safe. As if often the case in medicine, that's a simple question with a long answer.

Herman Cain, a retired businessman who rescued the Godfather's Pizza chain from peril in the late '80s, was holding his final meet-and-greet of the day at the Royal Cafe, a modest restaurant with a retirement home on its second floor. Earlier that day, he'd visited a firehouse in Iowa Falls and a "tea party" gathering in Marshallville. About 40 people, many of them elderly, sipped pink lemonade and listened politely as Cain explained why he should be the next Republican presidential nominee.

Big props to the Los Angeles Unified School District for doing away with chocolate milk and other sweetened drinks. The district is now a full-fledged practitioner of Obamacare. No, not that Obamacare. The other one. President Obama deserves credit for taking a leadership role in promoting healthcare reform. But the complexity of our medical system is such that no one person can solve all our problems. "Obamacare" is thus a misnomer when it comes to making the necessary political, economic and regulatory fixes.

It isn't too often that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a pro-environment Democrat from California, and Sen. Tom Coburn, a "drill, baby, drill" Republican from Oklahoma, agree on energy issues. Yet when it comes to the ethanol tax credit, an egregious form of corporate welfare that unites liberals and conservatives in opposition nationwide, they are of one mind. That's why it was disheartening Tuesday when an attempt to end the subsidy and save taxpayers nearly $6 billion a year went down in flames in the Senate.