Editorials

It was a natural reaction after 9/11: Protect the nation at any cost. But a survey of homeland security projects by Times staff writer Kim Murphy reveals that the "any cost" rationale has resulted in unnecessary and eccentric responses to the possibility of a terrorist act. Congress should block such projects in the future. For example, Murphy told of a grant for anti-terrorism equipment to a county in Nebraska, which received thousands of dollars for cattle nose leads, halters and electric prods — in case terrorists waged biological warfare against cows.

Los Angeles Times editorial writer Robert Greene has been awarded this year's Walker Stone Award for "outstanding achievement in editorial writing," the Scripps Howard Foundation announced Friday. The award is one of several accolades presented by the foundation each year to honor "the best work in the communications industry and journalism education." Greene received the award for editorials he wrote in 2009. "I was very excited and I felt honored and humbled," Greene said after learning of the honor.

The success of the 2010 federal healthcare law depends in part on more uninsured Americans obtaining coverage. So it's crucial that when the uninsured try to sign up for policies, they don't get a bureaucratic runaround or wind up in phone-tree hell. Yet that's what may happen in California. It's up to state lawmakers and the Brown administration to make sure that counties and Covered California, the state's new insurance-buying exchange, can provide hassle-free customer service. The healthcare law sought to make insurance affordable to more low- and moderate-income Americans in two main ways.

I very much enjoyed David Shaw's series (March 24-25-26) on the behind-the-scenes practices of some of the great newspapers of our country. For me, the editorials, letters to the editor, opinion page, are the icing on the cake. To digress briefly: Since arriving in California less than a year ago I was happy to find East Coast liberalism in your editorials and your pages. However, some months ago I noticed a change. Your columnists are now on the conservative side. Is this a permanent change?

ROBERT GATES--WRONG CHOICE FOR CIA: The Senate Intelligence Committee should recommend against confirmation of Mr. Gates to lead the CIA. The times demand a massive rethinking of the country's intelligence mission. It stretches the imagination to believe that Mr. Gates, the ultimate Old Guard insider, is the right person to do the intelligence work of the post-Cold War era. --The St. Paul (Minn.

WOFFORD MANDATE: MIDDLE CLASS DEMANDS RECOGNITION: If Wofford's victory represents a wake-up call for America, as we think it does, it is one directed at incumbents who have spent too long feeding at the public trough and have lost touch with the day-to-day struggle most Americans face raising a family and paying the bills.

And now a pop quiz, in honor of the 231st birthday of the city of Los Angeles: What's the oldest building in the city? Is it Mission San Gabriel Arcangel? It's true that this is the spot from which the Pobladores set out in 1781 to establish their city (the padres had earlier built their mission near what is now Montebello but later abandoned the site as unsuitable). Each Labor Day weekend, dignitaries, descendants of the founders and other celebrants retrace those early steps as best they can by walking from the mission southwest on Mission Road, Alhambra Avenue and Valley Boulevard, past Lincoln Park, over the river and to the plaza near Olvera Street.

The Times has won the first-place 1999 Aaron Price Award for its series of stories, "Failure to Provide: Los Angeles County's Child Support Crisis," published last fall. The paper also won a third-place Aaron Price Award for editorials titled "A Health Gain for Kids" and "Lagging Health Insurance Effort."

The Philadelphia Inquirer, stung by charges of racism over an editorial suggesting that more poor women should use contraceptives, will take the unusual step of publishing an apology in its Sunday editions. "I think maybe the best thing to say about it now is it is an apology and it's a change of position," Inquirer Editor Maxwell E. P. King said Friday. The Inquirer printed an editorial on Dec.