Compassion

"What I saw was not a pretty sight," sums up President Reagan as he stands in the middle of an Illinois cornfield in a front-page photo in The Times (July 15). It is astonishing that, with this statement, the President has expressed more compassion for stunted cornstalks than he ever has for this country's AIDS sufferers. Not a pretty thought. STEVE HOLLEY Los Angeles

Sometimes it's not the places you travel that you remember most, but the people you meet. That's certainly true of Kaaloa's Super J's Authentic Hawaiian restaurant on the Kona Coast on the Big Island of Hawaii. I was on a mission to try as many plate-lunch places as I could. Surely I must be missing something, I thought, after yet another meal of mushy rice, overcooked meat and bland macaroni salad. Then, our last night on the island, our hosts at Pomakai “Lucky” Farms bed and breakfast insisted we try local favorite Super J's. We'd driven past it several times and it didn't look like much, basically a convenience store with some chairs out front.

Sometimes it's not the places you travel that you remember most, but the people you meet. That's certainly true of Kaaloa's Super J's Authentic Hawaiian restaurant on the Kona Coast on the Big Island of Hawaii. I was on a mission to try as many plate-lunch places as I could. Surely I must be missing something, I thought, after yet another meal of mushy rice, overcooked meat and bland macaroni salad. Then, our last night on the island, our hosts at Pomakai “Lucky” Farms bed and breakfast insisted we try local favorite Super J's. We'd driven past it several times and it didn't look like much, basically a convenience store with some chairs out front.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has weathered a lot of criticism over the years, but nothing like the broadside that hit it from inside. A departing executive in the firm's London office accused Goldman in a newspaper column Wednesday of losing its moral compass and being overtaken by a greed-infested corporate culture. "I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it," Greg Smith, who quit as head of the firm's U.S. equity derivatives business in Europe, wrote in an opinion piece in the New York Times.

When the weight of strangers' grief overwhelms him, Kenneth Feinberg takes a walk. Sometimes he buys an ice cream and sits on a park bench, letting the sun replenish his depleted well of compassion. Other times, after listening to the pain, anger and recriminations of the bereaved, Feinberg takes refuge in opera — not for its cathartic pathos, but because it's the one place where he can count on falling asleep. A balding, bespectacled lawyer with skin nearly as thick as his Boston accent, Feinberg must daily sort the emotional rubble of disaster.

Re "PETA Ad Pulled From Yearbook," May 21: I find it amazing that a school principal would be so agitated over something as simple as advertising compassion for animals. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals members have done more to help animals in need than any organization in the world, and I am always perplexed as to why some people feel so threatened by them. They were simply trying to educate the kids about the horrors of the dairy industry. Laura Frisk Encinitas

I am saddened but not surprised by some of the public reaction to the problems faced by Roberto Morales ("Crash Victim's Coma Ends, But Not Troubles," March 3). We assert that the United States is a Christian nation. As an official policy, we attempt to alleviate suffering in Somalia and other areas. Yet at home, when it comes to a choice between compassion and a nickel, these people will choose the nickel. Roberto Morales is here illegally. He was injured fleeing authority. His life has been destroyed by his actions.

Four years have passed since Richard Gordon's teenage son Kwame was shot to death outside a graduation party in Eagle Rock. The circumstances were murky. The crime is still unsolved. Police said Kwame — a 17-year-old junior at a Pasadena Christian school — was killed after he shot a 27-year-old man who had confronted him and his friends outside a house party to which the group had been denied entrance. Friends of the wounded man fired back, police said. Kwame was hit in the stomach and died in the back seat of a Mercedes-Benz en route to the hospital.

Re "Tragic catch 9-11 for dying woman," June 13 The shocking death of Edith Rodriguez, who lay on the floor of Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital's emergency room lobby, repeatedly ignored and unattended as she vomited blood, is inexcusable. True healthcare professionals know that severe pain or illness results in patient behavior that may be difficult to deal with. With a perforated bowel, Rodriguez had every reason to be irrational. Where was the compassion? Obviously the good Samaritan who called 911, despite being a stranger to Rodriguez, had more compassion than all the others who had a role in this tragic situation.

MUSIC On Cake's first album since 2004, "Showroom of Compassion" — a runaway chart success — the Northern Californian outfit is in toned condition, turning out polished compositions that could fit in with its classic catalog. The band will play from both the old and the new at this Los Angeles tour stop. The Palladium, 6215 Sunset Blvd. 8 p.m. Sat. $35. livenation.com.

For most of his 76 years, the 14th Dalai Lama has been the spiritual light for followers of Tibetan Buddhism, his every word parsed for guidance to living a better, more fulfilling life. Awarded the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize, the Dalai Lama has been an outspoken advocate for compassion, meditation and religious tolerance. Now, as he steps down as leader of Tibet, the perpetually smiling monk in saffron and burgundy robes makes in "Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World" what some may regard as a heretical pronouncement: You don't need religion to lead a happy and ethical life.

When the weight of strangers' grief overwhelms him, Kenneth Feinberg takes a walk. Sometimes he buys an ice cream and sits on a park bench, letting the sun replenish his depleted well of compassion. Other times, after listening to the pain, anger and recriminations of the bereaved, Feinberg takes refuge in opera — not for its cathartic pathos, but because it's the one place where he can count on falling asleep. A balding, bespectacled lawyer with skin nearly as thick as his Boston accent, Feinberg must daily sort the emotional rubble of disaster.

UCLA receiver Taylor Embree said he would give his father, Jon Embree , Colorado's coach, a week to recover from Saturday's 45-6 rout by the Bruins. "I'll start talking trash after the USC game," Taylor Embree said. Jon Embree was in the unusual position of coaching against his son on UCLA's Senior Day. He met with Taylor Embree outside the UCLA locker room before the game. "He said, 'Good luck. Play fast; play physical,'" Taylor Embree said. "I told him, 'Good luck' too. " Said Jon Embree: "I'm just glad it was a one-time deal.

Safwan Sarfraz waved a toy gun menacingly at his younger brother as they squabbled over a bottle of soda, hardly surprising behavior for a 4-year-old. What's more unusual was the pacemaker and rebuilt heart chamber beneath a large bandage on his small chest. Safwan is alive thanks to rare cooperation between uneasy nuclear neighbors India and Pakistan that sees several hundred Pakistanis a year traveling to India on health visas, most for heart operations. "He's not quite ready to play cricket," said his father, Sheraz Sarfraz, 30, a cellphone repairman.

Winds, rain and straying yak are only some of the hardships in the remote and harshly beautiful Sichuan province grasslands where Tibetan nomads toil for their livelihood, but as Lynn True and Nelson Walker's humanely observed documentary "Summer Pasture" hints, it's the pull of modernity that most threatens their traditions. The film is on the one hand a graceful record of a primitive calling — featured husband and wife Locho and Yama are in a near-constant state of tethering, milking, dung-drying for fire, cooking and rope-making, on top of caring for their infant daughter and wryly bickering in their crowded tent.

Sister Margaret Farrell peers uncertainly over her shoulder as she tries to maneuver a lumbering minivan across several lanes of morning traffic on the Hollywood Freeway. "I used to drive a cute little nun's car," she says, shaking her head. Her 23-year-old passenger, Leane, chuckles and leans out the window to guide her. They make a cheerful pair: the Irish nun and the transgender woman. Audio slideshow: An unlikely friendship Leane was kicked out of home at 13 and spent years cycling between group homes and the streets.

Rising prices, lower quality, less convenience — consumers can put up with a lot. But one thing I've consistently heard from people is that they won't stand for lousy service. And I can understand why. There's just no excuse for businesses treating customers like unwanted dinner guests, tapping their corporate feet until the annoyance goes away. It's a symbiotic relationship. We need businesses to provide the stuff we want. But they need us just as much to buy their stuff.