Eugenics

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — A 29-year-old farmworker was convicted Tuesday of the murder of South African white supremacist leader Eugene TerreBlanche, but his teenage companion was acquitted in the killing, which had sparked fears of racial violence. Chris Mahlangu was found guilty of killing TerreBlanche, his employer and longtime advocate of a separate state for white Afrikaners. Patrick Ndlovu, 18, who was 15 and present at the slaying, was found guilty of housebreaking with intent to steal.

Amid all the ballyhoo over what a bold visionary Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is, let's pause for a moment to appreciate the work of Eugene Polley, inventor of the TV remote control, who has died at age 96. Think about it. Before Polley's brainstorm, people actually had to get up out of their seats and cross the room to change TV channels. Simply put, there would be no couch potatoes without this man. I don't mean to be snarky. The TV remote truly is one of those rare devices that change the way we live . I'd put it right up there with personal computers and microwave ovens.

Re "A crime against motherhood," Opinion, May 14 To my horror, I just read that the namesake of my local high school, David Starr Jordan, was a leading eugenicist who "promoted compulsory sterilization legislation across the United States. " Op-Ed article writer Nilmini Gunaratne Rubin implores that more be done to compensate victims of forced sterilization. I would imagine it is a terrible slap in the face to victims such as the author (who never had a sibling) and her mother to know that there are still schools named after perpetrators of these monstrous crimes against humanity.

My mom's first day of motherhood was one of the happiest of her life. It was also one of the worst. She had accompanied my dad from Sri Lanka to Washington State University in 1968, so he could complete his doctorate as a Fulbright Scholar. The school was in Pullman, a small town near the Idaho border. Fluent in English, she worked as a university librarian. During her pregnancy, at age 30, she received care from one of Pullman's few obstetricians. She endured labor without drugs, and I was born healthy in 1972.

Long Beach State freshman guard Mike Caffey knows his place: the bed nearest the door. The 49ers are in Portland, Ore., for their NCAA tournament opener Thursday against New Mexico, so Caffey gets another chance to room with senior guard Casper Ware. And Ware gets another chance to play Yoda in basketball sneakers. "I make him sleep in the bed closest to the door," Ware said. "If someone knocks, he's the one who has to get up. " Eventually, Ware will pass the torch to Caffey, who will take over as Long Beach's court general next season.

Modernist architect Eugene Weston III was in his early 30s when he declared that "the house is the last of the handcrafted objects" in an industrial age. The year was 1956, and he argued in The Times that even a modest house could be "more beautiful and meaningful" if it was built with post-and-beam construction that opens up interiors and invites the outdoors in through walls of glass. A third-generation Los Angeles architect, Weston built a string of midcentury homes here before spending three decades with a San Diego firm known for such large-scale commissions as the Old Globe Theatre, San Diego Wild Animal Park and several major buildings at UC San Diego.

In 1949, Eugene Kinn Choy built his family a home in Silver Lake. Deftly set in a narrow hillside lot, it was praised as a model of modernism, photographed by Julius Shulman and its merits noted in national architecture magazines. And yet the house might not have been built at all, if not for Choy's ingenuity and resolve. When racial covenants had threatened to keep him out of the area, he went door to door, seeking neighbors' permission before he moved in. "Even after he got an OK to purchase the land, no mainstream bank would offer financing," says Steven Y. Wong, the curator at the Chinese American Museum.

Eugene Temkin had a job he wanted done, and he knew precisely how he wanted it. The intended victims, including a former business associate with whom he'd had a nasty court fight, were to be hogtied and raped. They were to be tortured and forced to send $15 million to Temkin's off-shore bank account in Uruguay. They were then to be killed at their vacation home in Spain. That's what Temkin told a hit man he hired for the job and paid $3,000 as down payment. But that killer, whom Temkin knew as "Pavel," was in fact an undercover FBI agent.

Reporting from Eugene, Ore. -- Matt Barkley knew the formula. For USC to upset No. 4 Oregon in its frenzied stadium and on its speedy turf, the Trojans would have to keep their cool under the most trying conditions. "We can't get all out of whack just because it's a big-time game like this," Barkley said last week. On Saturday, the No. 18 Trojans played poised and efficient football for three quarters and then wobbled in the fourth. But in the end, sanctions-strapped USC whacked the quack out of the Ducks with a heart-stopping 38-35 victory before 59,933 at Autzen Stadium.

Reporting from Eugene, Ore. — It still mystifies De'Anthony Thomas, all those people talking about him, spreading rumors, devising theories about what happened. Nearly a year later, he throws his hands in the air and shakes his head. "Those people didn't even know me," he says. Which doesn't matter when you rank among the best high school football players in the nation, everyone watching to see which college you will choose, presuming they can decode the riddle that is an 18-year-old's thought process.