Plight

Re "A thin jobs docket for law grads," April 2 Thank you for shedding light on what has become a pervasive issue among recent law school graduates like myself. As a fellow Southwestern Law School alumnus, I sympathize with Michael D. Lieberman's plight, as I too was greeted with unemployment after graduating and passing the bar exam. At issue here is Southwestern's lack of empathy regarding its recent graduates. Startlingly, Southwestern's only communication with me since graduation has been in the form of letters and calls seeking donations.

Arnold Schwarzenegger uses his own improbable rise from bodybuilder to action hero to California governor as an argument for immigration reform. As a teenager in his native Austria, Schwarzenegger saw the United States as the only place he could achieve his outsized dreams. The 11 million immigrants now in the country illegally are not so different from his younger self, he told an audience Tuesday at the USC think tank that bears his name. "These are all very hardworking people.

In Jerry Seinfeld's "Bee Movie" of four years ago, a talking bee decides to sue the human race after finding out people exploit the insects and sell their honey. But, in fact, the bees were facing a much more dire situation. That year, news began to surface about honeybees fleeing their hives and dying en masse. Known as colony collapse disorder, the phenomenon is global, affecting farmers not only in the U.S. but also around the world, from Argentina and France to New Zealand and Taiwan.

NEW YORK - Above all else, Rachel Robinson remembers the kissing. When the taunts at the ballpark grew too fierce and the naysayers too loud, her husband, Jackie, would come home to their Brooklyn apartment and the couple would try to block out the world. "So many people are curious about how we were at home, thinking that we brought all the anger and chaos in there with us," Rachel Robinson, 90, said last week as she perched behind a desk at the gleaming offices of the education foundation she runs in lower Manhattan.

Thank you for your editorial (Aug. 13) regarding the plight of the Columbia River Indians, because of the broken promises of the federal government. Another example of such ill-treatment is the forced relocation of 10,000 Hopi/Navajo Indians from their ancestral homelands in the Four Corners area of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona, to make way for leasing their land to the Peabody Coal Co. and utilities. It is a shame that our "liberal" politicians who spend their time frothing at the mouth about events in South Africa, Nicaragua, Chile, and wherever, cannot spare any time to correct these indignities imposed on these original Native Americans.

I supported military action in the Persian Gulf and I rejoiced at the return of our troops. But my welcome home celebration for the troops was tarnished and quickly replaced by the sadness and shame of the Bush Administration's failure to respond to the plight of the Kurds. President Bush's unrelenting quest for photo opportunities is matched by the Administration's efforts to distort and mislead our country about this issue. The essence of the matter is food, blankets and medical supplies for the thousands of innocent Kurds who have fled from Saddam Hussein's terror.

Who are these street people? Where did they come from? Did they come from another planet? No! They are our neighbors and friends, and all indications are that there will be more of us in such desperate straits. We continue to spend enormous amounts of money on arms, to defend the American way of life, yet we are unwilling to share our bounty with people less fortunate than we. Let us not be self-righteous about why they are there and whether or not it's their own damn fault.

  In the essential documentary "A Place at the Table," co-directors Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush effectively touch on a wide range of intersecting issues that contribute to one startling statistic: One in six Americans is unsure where their next meal will come from. The filmmakers vividly illustrate the power and depth of the long-spiraling problem of "food insecurity" by immersing us in the hardscrabble lives of a cross section of our nation's poor. Whether it's Barbie, a single Philadelphia mother of two; Rosie, a Colorado fifth-grader sharing a cramped home with her parents and grandparents; or Tremonica, an overweight and underfed 7-year-old from Mississippi; they're all products of a sociopolitical system riddled with head-scratching contradiction and conflict over the plight of hunger.

Concerning the plight of Marine Staff Sgt. Terry Mizell ("Sergeant Borrows Trouble With Loan From Fellow Marine," Feb. 1): The slick, stirring television commercials for the U.S. armed forces claim only that the service is a "great place to start ." Presumably, a married enlisted man is expected to exist at the poverty level--while, of course, maintaining the highest professional standards, as defined by his officers. HERB GUTHMANN Fullerton

To the residents of Rolling Hills Estates: This morning I read in the Los Angeles Times of your dire plight created by numerous peafowl. How can I express my sympathy and intense concern? I know that out of a threatening world you have carved an idyllic, unassailable bit of acreage by the sea, one in which your own people can avoid the starvation of major areas of the world, the devastation of natural habitats, the invasion of crime and most urban and rural problems. You are to be congratulated and appreciated.

Re "A thin jobs docket for law grads," April 2 Thank you for shedding light on what has become a pervasive issue among recent law school graduates like myself. As a fellow Southwestern Law School alumnus, I sympathize with Michael D. Lieberman's plight, as I too was greeted with unemployment after graduating and passing the bar exam. At issue here is Southwestern's lack of empathy regarding its recent graduates. Startlingly, Southwestern's only communication with me since graduation has been in the form of letters and calls seeking donations.

ENCINITAS - A Vista man has been arrested in the shooting death of an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker best known for his work involving the plight of orphans in Romania. Michael Vilkin, 61, was booked Thursday into county jail on a charge of murder in the death of John Upton, 56. Though the San Diego County Sheriff's Department has not revealed a motive, the shooting may have resulted from a property dispute. Upton's body was found Thursday morning outside his home in the Olivenhain section of this upscale community.

For the last seven years, Culver City-based artist Jennifer MaHarry has been photographing wild horses in the West. "Their free spirit and majestic beauty is what initially captivated me," said MaHarry, founder of Eden Creative, where she designs print ad campaigns for film. It was after visiting Wild Horses in Need, a rescue center in Ojai, that she learned of their at times inhumane treatment in captivity and decided to use her craft to shed light on their plight. Photographed in the wilderness, at roundups, government holding facilities and horse rescue sanctuaries in Utah and California, several of her images can be seen at the G2 Gallery in Venice, with a full-scale show planned there in June.

Fans of “The Walking Dead” were thrilled last night when the show was parodied on “SNL.” In the sketch, Rick Grimes (played by Taran Killam) is traveling with his crew, including Nasim Pedrad as trigger-happy 12-year-old Carl who “shot my mom when she was turning into a zombie and it didn't screw up my head at all.” The group encounters Lyle, played by host Kevin Hart, who asks to join them, then starts turning into a zombie as they confer. Each time they speak of his impending zombiehood, Lyle accuses them of racism in return.

  In the essential documentary "A Place at the Table," co-directors Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush effectively touch on a wide range of intersecting issues that contribute to one startling statistic: One in six Americans is unsure where their next meal will come from. The filmmakers vividly illustrate the power and depth of the long-spiraling problem of "food insecurity" by immersing us in the hardscrabble lives of a cross section of our nation's poor. Whether it's Barbie, a single Philadelphia mother of two; Rosie, a Colorado fifth-grader sharing a cramped home with her parents and grandparents; or Tremonica, an overweight and underfed 7-year-old from Mississippi; they're all products of a sociopolitical system riddled with head-scratching contradiction and conflict over the plight of hunger.

Re "Bin Laden's killer asks for benefits," Feb. 14 The delay in processing veterans' disability claims is inexcusable. But the fact that the Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden does not qualify for a pension is based on his own decision to retire before the 20-year threshold. With 16 years of service, he should have known that he had to serve four more years to qualify. The military pension system encourages personnel to serve for 20 years. Those who leave the military before that are encouraged by this system to transfer to the armed forces' reserve component, including the National Guard, where they can complete their 20 years of service and qualify for a reduced military pension beginning at age 60. Those who leave the military before 20 years of service also qualify for extremely generous GI Bill educational and other benefits that are unlike any in the civilian sector.

It took false reports of mass suicide for Mexicans to rally in great number to the aid of the legendary Tarahumara Indians, who are facing a season of starvation. But publicity about their plight has exposed the chronic marginalization and growing perils, including drug violence, faced by many indigenous communities, activists say. Members of the Tarahumara community "die every year from hunger; it's just that this year, it's worse," said Liliana Flores, a founder of the El Barzon organization, which works with poor campesinos and indigenous peoples.

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie A novel Ayana Mathis Knopf: 256 pp., $24.95 In "The Twelve Tribes of Hattie," first-time author Ayana Mathis walks upon some of the richest thematic terrain our country's history can offer a novelist. Her protagonist, Hattie Shepherd, arrives in Philadelphia from Georgia in the mid-1920s, one of a legion of travelers in the great migration, that movement of African Americans from the Jim Crow South to the promise and relative freedom of the North.

Russell Means, who gained international notoriety as one of the leaders of the 71-day armed occupation of Wounded Knee in South Dakota in 1973 and continued to be an outspoken champion of American Indian rights after launching a career as an actor in films and television in the 1990s, has died. He was 72. Means died Monday at his home in Porcupine, S.D., on the Pine Ridge Reservation, said Glenn Morris, his legal representative. Diagnosed with esophageal cancer in July 2011 and told that it had spread too far for surgery, Means refused to undergo heavy doses of radiation and chemotherapy.