Distribution

Early on Saturday morning in family rooms across the country, brightly colored, high-voltage programs zoom, soar, slash, biff, wham--and sell--their way through the small screen to television's most avid viewership in powerful 30-minute or hourlong doses of action and fantasy.

A reputed mobster was convicted today in Los Angeles of taking part in a scheme to distribute part of a $3.5-million cache of counterfeit $100 bills. Jack Catain Jr., 56, a Tarzana businessman, was found guilty of conspiring to transfer counterfeit on May 7, 1985, and the transfer of $50,000 in counterfeit $100 bills on April 18. The jury acquitted Catain on a third charge, the passage of two $100 notes on May 3.

It has been said that the only thing worse than working for Jack Tramiel is trying to compete against him. Tramiel is the 59-year-old concentration camp survivor whose Atari Corp. on Sunday agreed to acquire the City of Commerce-based Federated Group consumer electronics retailing chain for $67.3 million.

L.A. Gear, whose athletic shoe and apparel business hit the skids about a year ago, said Friday that it expects to lay off 400 workers--nearly a third of its work force--in the next 12 months. The once-high-flying casual wear and shoe company said the initial cuts--expected in a few months--will affect 250 employees. The company employs about 1,250, most in Southern California. The initial layoffs will primarily hit workers in L.A.

Star forward Bernard King of the New York Knicks will miss the rest of the season after diagnostic arthroscopic surgery on his injured right knee Monday revealed both a torn ligament and torn cartilage. Dr. Norman Scott, the team's physician, did not rule out further surgery. King was injured with 1:24 left in Saturday night's game at Kansas City. He returned Sunday to New York, where he was immediately hospitalized. King, who has played in 55 of the Knicks' 72 games this year, has a 32.

Your editorial "Let's Leave the Ice Age" (May 18) overlooked several points in its call for reform of county government. Los Angeles County is one of its most innovative and efficiently run local governments in America. We lead the nation in productivity reforms and contracting out of government services, which have saved county taxpayers tens of millions of dollars each year. It was Los Angeles County that took the initiative to synchronize traffic signals countywide, in partnership with our 86 cities.

How coincidental that "Investing in Hope, at $50 a Share" (July 22) appeared the day after our youth group made and distributed 200 lunches on 4th and 5th streets in downtown Los Angeles immediately following our morning worship services. It has been doing this every month for the past five years and is a living testament to the benefits one receives from giving, which your article highlighted. Whether it's the making and distribution of lunches or handing out envelopes filled with cash, church congregations in Los Angeles, Indianapolis and countless other communities commit random acts of kindness and hospitality much more than they are given credit for. Your article is a breath of fresh air in the wake of other less important news about churches that often makes the front pages of your newspaper.

It may not have been much, but the cardboard box filled with vegetables, meat and other food brought a smile to the face of Seang Muy. Since fleeing a communist labor camp in her native Cambodia several years ago, the 32-year-old refugee has known little joy in the United States. Unable to speak English, she has never held a job. Muy's husband abandoned her in April.

Although Len Hall, Henry Einhorn and Greg Patus scored big locally with their first sports novelty item, success on a national level of their business "ballgame" remains a long shot. The inventors of the San Diego Padre "Fan Clubs"--the inflatable baseball bats that are being sold by vendors at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium--are among the hundreds of would-be entrepreneurs who each year approach big-league sports teams with what they hope are get-rich-quick schemes.