Full Disclosure

Stop Forgetting to Remember The Autobiography of Walter Kurtz Peter Kuper Crown: 208 pp., $19.95 EVELYN WAUGH prefaced "Brideshead Revisited" with the note, "I am not I; thou art not he or she; they are not they." But some stories might require an I for an I, for the simple reason that people will see the maker in the model, and every deviation from reality will read as a flaw.

Two liberal groups have asked the Judicial Conference of the United States to investigate whether Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has violated the federal Ethics in Government Act. The prospect of such an investigation is remote, but the conduct cited by Common Cause and the Alliance for Justice is troubling. The groups have asked the Judicial Conference to consider two possibilities: that Thomas knowingly withheld information about his wife's income from financial disclosure forms, and that he misrepresented the amount of free air travel he received from a wealthy friend.

A friend from back East called me as soon as the new Esquire magazine hit the streets, the same issue with the 1998 Dubious Achievement Awards. "So," she said, "did you read that article about Michael Huffington?" "Did he have a Dubious Achievement?" "Well, not exactly," she said. I asked what that meant. "Huffington outed himself as gay." "He did?" "Well, not exactly gay," she said. I asked what that meant. "Homosexual, but not gay." "Now there's a dubious achievement," I said. "That he's gay?"

Let's say your barber is increasing the cost of haircuts. Is it fair for other barbers to require that you disclose how much you were being asked to pay before they say how much they'll charge? That hypothetical example illustrates the situation many California businesses find themselves in when they go shopping for health insurance. By routinely having to reveal the size of a rate increase to other insurers, they all but guarantee that no one will provide coverage for much less.

Vowing to clean up the confusing and sometimes abusive settlement process faced by home buyers and mortgage borrowers, the Bush administration's top housing official last week announced proposals for sweeping reforms. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez called for a streamlining of the mortgage finance system by requiring "full disclosure of settlement costs, as early as possible in the home-buying process."

Thanks for Scott Collins' cover story on public access cable television on April 21. I see much of the same unfulfilled potential in these cable television stations. As an occasional participant on the public access "Full Disclosure" program, I can speak firsthand on what the mainstream media is missing with regularity. In contrast to the "commercialism" programs reported by Scott Collins, "Full Disclosure" concentrates on issues covering public safety, government accountability, crime, fraud and corruption, from the people's point of view.

Question: We installed a new electric service panel on our home. We never got a permit, but everything was done to code by contractors. Now we want to sell the home. Can we simply disclose the improvements and hope that buyers don't talk to the building department about permits? If we get caught, can we continue the sale at a lower price? And could the city fine us for not getting a permit? Answer: Your perspective as a seller is misguided and inappropriate.

The insurance business is a multibillion-dollar industry in California. Due to the enormous impact the industry has on our lives, the state Department of Insurance was separated from Business, Transportation and Housing Agency, creating an independent department. Clearly the department's mission was consumer protection through its investigation of claims, response to inquiries and enforcement actions.

If an impasse at the Federal Election Commission remains, corporations, unions and wealthy individuals will be able to fund hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign advertisements for next year's presidential and congressional elections while keeping their names and roles secret. The agency's three Democratic commissioners want full disclosure ? saying current law and the Supreme Court's most recent decision on campaign spending require it. The three Republican commissioners challenge that interpretation and favor a largely hands-off approach.

Just three years ago, L.A.'s high-minded public television station threw in its lot with that maven of flashy , commercial TV, Fred Silverman. Some might have feared that teaming with the champion of "Charlie's Angels" and "Three's Company" would disfigure KCET. Instead, the onetime network programming guru helped craft a thoughtful roster of locally oriented programs. One show would adapt theatrical productions for the small screen, another would let politicians mix with voters, while still another would reenact heroic deeds.

If an impasse at the Federal Election Commission remains, corporations, unions and wealthy individuals will be able to fund hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign advertisements for next year's presidential and congressional elections while keeping their names and roles secret. The agency's three Democratic commissioners want full disclosure -- saying current law and the Supreme Court's most recent decision on campaign spending require it. The three Republican commissioners challenge that interpretation and favor a largely hands-off approach.

When Peter Devereaux arrived at Camp Lejeune in December 1980, he had no idea that officials were looking into unsafe levels of toxic chemicals in the drinking water. As a Marine stationed at the sprawling military base along the North Carolina shore, Devereaux said, he led a healthy lifestyle. When he was diagnosed in early 2008 with a rare disease — male breast cancer — Devereaux did not connect his illness to Camp Lejeune. But six months after he'd had his left breast and 22 cancerous lymph nodes removed, he received a letter from the Department of the Navy informing him that in the 1980s, "unregulated chemicals were discovered" in the drinking water at the camp's Hadnot Point water distribution system.

Just three years ago, L.A.'s high-minded public television station threw in its lot with that maven of flashy , commercial TV, Fred Silverman. Some might have feared that teaming with the champion of "Charlie's Angels" and "Three's Company" would disfigure KCET. Instead, the onetime network programming guru helped craft a thoughtful roster of locally oriented programs. One show would adapt theatrical productions for the small screen, another would let politicians mix with voters, while still another would reenact heroic deeds.

It's Valentine's Day, when even reasonable people wander around, engagement rings at the ready, blathering about how "love is the answer." Snap out of it! Love, in fact, may be the problem. Passion often blinds sweethearts to the fact that matrimony is, at bottom, a contract. Figuring out how that partnership can prosper is critical for a successful union. Yet financial differences rank among the greatest sources of marital misery, in part because talking about money before you tie the knot makes many couples uncomfortable.

Sitting in the makeshift studio in the garage behind his Leimert Park home, Dam-Funk says he doesn't know who dubbed him "the Ambassador of Boogie Funk," but he wants to be clear that he didn't give himself that title. "Boogie is fun, but I don't want to be lumped into a hole," he says. "I'm not going to let anybody peg me." As an artist, producer and DJ, Dam (pronounced "dame") might have resurrected the genre of boogie, which got big in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as electronic instruments and disco smoothed out funk's grit, but his songs are also influenced by Chicago house, experimental electronic music and the slow roll of '90s gangsta rap. The 38-year-old's compositions are full of blown-out synthesizers, thwapping drum machines and vocodered vocals, all wrapped in a thick purple fog. It's the kind of stuff that would blare from the stereo of a homemade spaceship.

In a hip restaurant in Lower Manhattan, a young waitress approaches the table just as the conversation turns to some of the racier stories that punctuate Alan Cumming's cabaret act, "I Bought a Blue Car Today." The decibel level immediately drops to a discreet hush. "Shhhhh," says the 44-year-old actor sardonically. "We're in the East Village. Mustn't shock the locals." After the waitress leaves, Cumming is asked whether the show, which premiered last year at New York's Lincoln Center and had recent runs in Sydney and London, will still contain such frankly sexual material when he takes it to the Orange County Performing Arts Center and the Geffen Playhouse.

Re "Right and Wrong Shouldn't Be Guesswork," Commentary, Oct. 9: John Balzar is timely and on target in calling for a blue-ribbon commission to reform and update our laws and regulations governing basic honesty in business. I am referring here to laws that mandate full disclosure, transparency, accountability and simple truthfulness. Lying in business has become obsolete and can be safely outlawed. Capitalism thrives on transparency and factual truth, which underlie trust, which is the basis of trade.

The extent of prevarication and double-talk issuing from the White House has gone beyond even the most highly forced extent of credibility. In the Dec. 11 issue of The Times several of the members of the House panel which is conducting hearings state flatly and definitely that they are having difficulty obtaining documents from the White House. One is quoted as saying, "Getting those documents is like pulling eyeteeth." In an adjoining column the Administration is quoted as stating that the White House is making full disclosure and has advised all members of the staff to make full disclosure of all matters and all facts concerning the Iranian arms- contra funds situation.

Re: Dan Neil's auto column, "Miles to go for Tesla's Model S," April 29: I know you're a tough critic, but come on, the Tesla S is nearly two years away from market. Of course whatever they show you is not going to be final. Who cares if the touch screen doesn't make it to the final production model. I'm buying an electric car, not a rolling iPhone. If that's the worst that you can come up with, then great. Sounds like they've got a winner. Full disclosure. I've plunked down $5,000 of my hard-earned cash for a deposit.