Palos Verdes Estates

Re "Mortgage relief plan advances," April 3 I am confused about why the government would spend so much money on one sector of the population: homeowners facing foreclosure. What about those of us who cannot afford to purchase a home? We are already at a disadvantage because the current tax laws reward those who own homes with deductions for home-loan interest and taxes on their income tax returns. The rest of us are left paying more taxes simply because we don't have the income to purchase a home.

Re "Under the gun," editorial, March 18 Your opinion misses the core ideal of the 2nd Amendment -- the individual right of self-defense against tyranny, whether by petty criminals or governments run amok. When such tyrannies cease to exist, the 2nd Amendment can be called obsolete. We are not there yet. I don't see any signs we are getting there, either. Your coverage of the killings in Los Angeles is on point -- another example of tyranny, by gang members, against which the law-abiding have no defense, which ensures homicides go unsolved because of a lack of witnesses.

David Lazarus' article is right on ("Ads spur urge for drugs," Consumer Confidential," Feb. 6). My response: If I have to ask my doctor, as the ads solicit, then I need to find a new doctor. I disagree, however, that "No one knew at the time how quickly such advertising would expand, or how effective it would become." I'll bet the drug companies did. Robert Kroll La Quinta -- I have wondered about the appropriateness of pharmaceutical companies appealing directly to the public with prescription drugs.

WILL HAWLEY'S three-bedroom Palos Verdes Estates home has a picturesque 50-foot-deep garden in back shaded by a grove of giant eucalyptus trees and separated from a meandering forested trail by an unassuming wooden fence. The backyard has been a feature he's enjoyed since he bought the home in 1998. But in October, Hawley attended a meeting of the Palos Verdes Estates City Council and returned home with bad news: About half of what he thought was his backyard is public land.

I have just read articles about two innocent young men in the July 26 Times: one about Vincent Martinez being shot in his Oxnard frontyard and another about a father donating a rare Buddha in memory of his son, Chester Chang, who was shot to death. Because stories like this appear every day, every single day, I have just one question: Why do we allow people who have no reason to own them to have guns? Priscilla Fourer Palos Verdes Estates

Tell me it isn't so, Joe. Twenty-five years with the McCourts? More like five more years of minor league baseball until they develop the land then sell the team and land for a run at the Red Sox. Stan Long Sun City Any housing built in Chavez Ravine should include a significant affordable component. Beyond the dire need for such housing in the city of Los Angeles, it would serve as a symbolic replacement for the Chavez Ravine housing stock destroyed by the city prior to their essential gift of the land to Walter O'Malley in the 1950s.

Bill Plaschke, in your column "College Baseball Clearly Short of Black Players," you bemoan that "the lack of diversity will again be impossible to hide." Answer: Who cares, there's nothing to hide. You've gone from writing about a subject you don't know much about, sports, (remember "UCLA owns this town"?) to a subject you know about even less, liberal social commentary that does not belong in the Sports section. Baseball is one of the last free areas in life where the best players play due to their skill.

In my humble opinion, Iraq is no better off now than it was under the rule of Saddam Hussein, and haven't we killed as many innocent civilians as he did? Mary Overbey Palos Verdes Estates

Re "French Hall of Shame," editorials, March 12: Sacre bleu. Was it a really slow day on the editorial page last Saturday, or did you have a guest editorial writer from the Swift Boat Veterans Against All Things French? I wonder how to say "much ado about nothing" in French? Did I miss something, or isn't railing against a silly xenophobic court decision, a minor ministerial housing scandal and French policy in Iraq pretty small potatoes compared with such issues at home as the administration's efforts in the courts to efface the separation of church and state, the influence peddling in the House majority leader's own house and the ongoing failures of U.S. policy in Iraq?