Off Limits

In a sign of how vilified smoking has become, lawmakers in Virginia -- where the world's largest cigarette factory churns out Marlboros -- passed curbs on smoking in restaurants. The 59-39 vote in the House of Delegates approved a watered-down bill that allows smoking only in private clubs, outdoor cafes, designated smoking rooms and establishments that are off-limits to minors. The proposed penalties are hardly draconian: a maximum civil fine of $25 for smokers or restaurateurs who defy the law. The bill already exempted private clubs and outdoor patios.

Strutting the stage in her white tuxedo jacket, shorts and sparkling top hat, Taylor Swift opened Sunday's Grammy Awards with a live performance of her current hit, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together. " Inside Staples Center, the singer's performance earned loud applause. But to the Twitterverse watching at home, the pop and country superstar sang a little bit flat. Swift was dancing in the footsteps of countless artists who have performed live at music's biggest night.

Just when Los Angeles County taxpayers are asked to vote over $300 million for needed parks (Prop. A), Robert A. Jones' essay ("Defying the Job God," Sept. 18) tells how Long Beach Naval Station, 170 park-like acres and beautiful buildings, paid for by taxpayers (though off-limits to the public), is about to be flattened and paved with asphalt for the China cargo trade. No wonder people are fed up with government. VIKKI CUKIER Calabasas

WASHINGTON - Healthcare for the nation's poor, once viewed as especially vulnerable in this era of budget cutting, has emerged as a surprisingly secure government entitlement with as much political clout as the Medicare and Social Security retirement programs. Even as President Obama and congressional Republicans gear up for a new budget battle, Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, which together provide coverage to more than 1 in 5 Americans and almost 1 in 3 Californians over the course of a year, appear off-limits despite their huge price tag. The president protected Medicaid in 2011 when Congress and the White House slashed $1.2 trillion in federal spending, including on Medicare - the healthcare plan for seniors and disabled people - as part of a deal to raise the nation's debt limit.

Re "FBI losing trust of some Muslims," April 20 I was surprised by the statement by Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations for Greater Los Angeles, that "our mosques are off-limits ... our Koran is off-limits." If Islam is a universal religion, why would a Muslim spokesperson declare their mosques and their sacred book off-limits? On the other hand, if Islam is a political force, intending to subject us all to harsh Sharia law, then it is understandable that Muslims would want to keep their meetings closed and their handbook for accomplishing their objectives out of the hands of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Many times articles in the Travel Section will mention great golf courses but will state that the public cannot play there. Sometimes this is only a half-truth. In many cases the public can play at the course but only if they stay at a hotel that is associated with the course or if they're on a special golf tour. I never consider a course off-limits until I've exhausted all possibilities. GERALD F. ABBOTT Hawthorne

Re "Pendulum of Morality Is Swinging Back," Column Right, Feb. 12: The variability of human nature and morality are of minor proportions; James Pinkerton's emphasis is misdirected. In this explosive information environment with the worldwide proliferation of uncontrolled cyberspace activity, nothing seems to be off-limits. The various media have taken the cue, and with little compunction delve into President Clinton's sexual intimacies. The tabloidization of news and the accompanying flow of salacious material are far too great.

In some of the pictures accompanying your article on Easter Island ("A Heady Adventure," Oct. 24), it was surprising to see tourists walking on the carefully aligned stones and grass arranged in front of the moai displays and posing close to the statues themselves. When we visited the island, guided by Chilean anthropologists in charge of the sites, we were strictly forbidden to approach any closer than the boundaries of the rows of stones and grass, which kept us well away from the upright figures.

No sooner had the Greyfield Inn ferryboat chugged out of the Fernandina Beach, Fla., marina when somebody popped the question. "All right, let's get this over with," said Jerry, a brash, 40-ish businessman on vacation from Atlanta. With a cold Busch beer in one hand and a bag of boiled peanuts in the other, he looked at the young woman in the Greyfield Inn uniform, offered a charming, crooked smile and asked, "Did you see any of them from the wedding?"

Squeezed between the Doritos and Budweiser ads during last weekend's Super Bowl was a spot paid for with California tax dollars. Airtime for the most expensive television event of the year is probably not the first item on which deficit-plagued California might be expected to spend money. The ad, exhorting people to quit smoking, came as Gov. Jerry Brown had proposed gutting many state healthcare services to help balance the budget. The commercial was a part of a $14.5-million television campaign funded this year partly by a 25-cent-per-pack tax on cigarettes.

Fred Davis always loved putting on a show. As a boy, he recruited his siblings and neighbor kids to perform in the plays he wrote and staged in the family den and, sometimes, in nursing homes around Tulsa, Okla. Davis wanted to be an actor, but his middling talent and the sudden death of his father when he was a teenager changed those plans. He inherited his dad's public relations firm, grew up and became a successful commercial ad man before moving into politics, largely by happenstance.

SACRAMENTO - When sprinter Allyson Felix returns home to Southern California with her Olympic gold medal, she may have to share her good fortune with her government. The $25,000 honorarium that gold medalists receive from the U.S. Olympic Committee is subject to both federal and state taxes, as is the $15,000 for silver medalists and the $10,000 for bronze winners. Now a bipartisan group of state lawmakers wants to help Felix and more than 30 other California medalists by exempting the honorariums and the value of their medals from state taxes.

James Holmes, the alleged shooter in the Aurora, Colo., movie theater massacre, was lucky to be living in the U.S.A. People who want to kill people find guns are very handy and, thanks to America's gun lobby, they can buy them easily in this country, along with all the ammunition needed to get the job done. If the alleged gunman had been living in Norway, a place with much stricter gun regulations, he would have had to work harder to amass an arsenal. Still, there is the inconvenient fact for liberals that Norway's tougher laws did not deter right-wing racist Anders Breivik from gunning down 69 young people at a leftist youth camp last summer.

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker John A. Boehner dismissed as "nonsense" a proposed GOP campaign attack on President Obama's past association with the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., as well as a Democratic fundraising effort that followed.   "This kind of nonsense shouldn't happen," said Boehner on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos. " "The election is going to be about the economy and getting Americans back to work. And I think Gov. Romney's prescriptions are much better. "   The role of the harsh attack ads -- this one over the delicate topic of religion -- reared this week after the New York Times disclosed a proposal from conservative strategists to wage an ad blitz against Obama, linking him to the controversial remarks from Wright, his former pastor in Chicago.

As he sat at the podium, Coach Mike Brown's infectious smile and enthusiasm suddenly evaporated. It had nothing to do with the Lakers' 2-0 deficit to the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference semifinals. It had nothing to do with basketball. It had everything to do with fans issuing profantiy-laced death threats to the Twitter account of Lakers guard Steve Blake and his wife, Kristen, after he missed a potential game-winning three-pointer in the Lakers' 77-75 loss to the Thunder in Game 2 on Wednesday.

SAN FRANCISCO - California is one step closer to becoming one of the first states to ban companies from asking job seekers and workers for their user names and passwords on Facebook and other social networking websites. The state Assembly on Thursday passed a bill sponsored by Assemblywoman Nora Campos (D-San Jose) that would make anything workers designate as private on social networks off-limits to employers. The bill, which passed the Assembly without a dissenting vote, now goes to the California Senate.

Strutting the stage in her white tuxedo jacket, shorts and sparkling top hat, Taylor Swift opened Sunday's Grammy Awards with a live performance of her current hit, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together. " Inside Staples Center, the singer's performance earned loud applause. But to the Twitterverse watching at home, the pop and country superstar sang a little bit flat. Swift was dancing in the footsteps of countless artists who have performed live at music's biggest night.

Reporting from Blythe, Calif. -- One of California's showcase solar energy projects, under construction in the desert east of Los Angeles, is being threatened by a deadly outbreak of distemper among kit foxes and the discovery of a prehistoric human settlement on the work site. The $1-billion Genesis Solar Energy Project has been expedited by state and federal regulatory agencies that are eager to demonstrate that the nation can build solar plants quickly to ease dependence on fossil fuels and curb global warming.

President Obama, addressing the swirling controversy over a Democratic strategist's comments about Ann Romney, declared that “there is no tougher job than being a mom” and that the families of candidates should be off limits. The president said he knows well how hard mothers work from his own upbringing and from raising daughters with his wife, Michelle. “When I think about what Michelle's had to do, when I think about my own mom, a single mother raising me and my sister, that's work,” the president said in a Thursday interview at the White House with anchor Bruce Aune of KCRG-TV of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Arctic waters would be open to new oil and gas development under an Obama administration proposal that keeps the Pacific and Atlantic coasts off-limits to more drilling. The Interior Department's offshore leasing plan, released Tuesday, attempts to steer a middle course — and goes too far in the view of environmental groups and not far enough in the eyes of House Republicans. The proposal omits Atlantic and Pacific coast areas that the George W. Bush administration sought to open to drilling.