Promises

In an odd yet understandable marketing strategy, the folks behind E!'s new reality show "Mrs. Eastwood & Company" have spent a lot of pre-premiere publicity time explaining what the show isn't. Which is to say, Clint Eastwood. The legendary actor and director will appear in but a few episodes and then only briefly. He will not, for instance, be slamming doors or engaging in filmed therapy sessions with his wife, Dina, around whom the show revolves (see title.) That doesn't mean the show is not about Clint Eastwood; it is. If the principal characters -- Dina, her 15-year-old daughter Morgan and 19-year old stepdaughter Francesca -- were not related to him, there would be Absolutely No Reason to watch this, which, by reality show standards, promises to be tame to the point of sedation.

Seaweed can shrink your waistline. Grow your hair. Bring down your blood pressure along with your blood sugar. Build up the strength of your bones and your brain. Make your joints stop aching and your bowels get moving. Give cancer short shrift, and give cellulite and wrinkles the old heave-ho. That is, if you believe the hype - only some of which is backed up by reliable evidence. The data are strongest that seaweed can reduce inflammation, premenstrual syndrome symptoms and even the growth of tumors (in animals)

The state of California's real unfunded pension debt clocks in at more than $500 billion, nearly eight times greater than officially reported. That's the finding from a study released Monday by Stanford University's public policy program, confirming a recent report with similar, stunning findings from Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. To put that number in perspective, it's almost seven times greater than all the outstanding voter-approved state general obligation bonds in California.

WASHINGTON - An ambitious effort to launch a third-party presidential ticket this fall has foundered, done in by its inability to attract a top-tier candidate and the grass-roots support necessary to power its novel online nominating process. Despite the backing of heavyweight political and business leaders and a $15-million effort to get on the ballot across the country, Americans Elect announced Tuesday that none of its potential candidates mustered the minimum support needed to qualify for the group's primary.

Four and a half years ago, a Los Angeles city councilman looking to become mayor promised to take the bureaucracy into uncharted territory by helping residents get better access to cheaper prescription drugs. The LA-Rx program, unveiled in the heat of Antonio Villaraigosa's campaign, was ambitious. It was innovative. And it took a back seat to other initiatives once he won office. When Villaraigosa finally unveiled the start of LA-Rx last week, it was one of several signs that the mayor -- now in his second term -- is trying to shed a reputation for being long on promises and short on follow-through.

Did someone forget to pay the light bill for President Bush's 1,000 points of light? VIC FAILLE Hemet

Re "Residents Keep Lobbying for Park," Nov. 3. Good luck. When we purchased our home on Richardson, just north of a very large vacant piece of land in 1989, we were assured by our real estate broker that the lot could never be used for anything other than a park or a new school. Wrong! Today the entire horizon of the lot at Bennett and Sinaloa has been blocked off, all the trees removed and a five-foot wall is being readied for 25 or so homes. So much for promises. GEORGE PEGG, Simi Valley

Bill Lobdell made quite a name for himself in this newsroom writing about faith gone wrong. He called out crooked ministers, fraudulent faith healers and abusive priests. Now Lobdell has launched a new journalism website with a partner who once was convicted and sent to prison for a multimillion-dollar swindle. The veteran religion writer hopes to do to crooked businesses what he did to ministers who did not live up to their calling. What has many traditional journalists agog is not just that Lobdell threw in with onetime ZZZZ Best con man Barry Minkow, but what the duo, operating as iBusinessreporting.

As a Native American (a.k.a. Indian), I would like to address the issue of the Catholic Church's plan to build a social hall on the graves of my ancestors at Mission San Diego de Alcala. My dear Catholic brethren: You seem to have forgotten your own history, as well as your promises to us natives. Do you not remember when you first came to this country, carrying your sword and cross? How gentle we were with you. Have you forgotten we welcomed you as guests? How naive and trusting we were.

Continuing his campaign for an overhaul of the nation's healthcare system, President Obama promised his audience here in western Colorado on Saturday that his effort would create a "common-sense set of consumer protections" for Americans with health insurance. In an effort to soothe concerns amid the contentious healthcare debate, the president pledged that new legislation would ease the burdens of average consumers by capping the amount insurance companies can charge annually for out-of-pocket costs like co-pays and deductibles.

The company introduced last year as a financially powerful production partner for KCET-TV has been reduced to a tiny operation that has been late on some of its bills, according to several people familiar with the company. In addition, the company relied on mass-market DVDs, and not just its own archive, for some segments of a nostalgia program it makes for the public television station, according to these people. Four people who have worked for Eyetronics Media & Studios said in interviews that they and others had gone without pay for as long as six weeks during the last year.

Stan Kasten still wears the massive World Series ring he won 17 years ago as president of the Atlanta Braves, and he says there has rarely been a day when someone hasn't wanted to touch or hold it. "I take it off every day," he said Wednesday. "Because I'm asked by a fan, by a staffer, by a player to see it. And I want them to see it. This is why we're here. " Kasten, 60, was standing in front of home plate at Dodger Stadium wearing a crisp white Dodgers home jersey over a blue tie as he spoke about how he, as team president, planned to turn the Dodgers into consistent winners — just as he had done in Atlanta.

Jerry Seinfeld once said, "There's no such thing as fun for the whole family. " Ask anyone who has tried cramming himself or his kin into the third row of seats in a crossover sport utility vehicle, and it's likely they'll agree. Doing so is an adventure often requiring a pickax or perhaps a healthy application of Crisco. Once you're installed, there's no guarantee that you're comfortable. Or ever getting out. Yet three-row crossovers have no trouble selling to buyers who are immune to the siren song of practicality seeping from the island of Minivan.

High foreclosure rates and a strong rental market pushed the homeownership rate in the U.S. to a 15-year low, even as projections for the housing market grew brighter. The 65.4% rate in the first quarter is down from the 66% rate in the fourth quarter and 66.4% in the first quarter of last year, according to the Census Bureau. Before the housing bubble burst, homeownership reached a high of 69.2% in 2004. The current rate is low compared with the last decade partly because earlier homeownership rates were inflated by people who hadn't made down payments and were really "renters with an option to buy," said Richard K. Green, director of USC's Lusk Center for Real Estate.

"CP3" expects to be A-OK come Sunday. Chris Paul, the Clippers' All-Star point guard, was held out of practice Friday with a mild groin strain that had sidelined him during his team's loss at New York on Wednesday. Paul, who was named the NBA's Western Conference player of the month for April, has been receiving treatment for the injury and said he's improving. "They didn't let me practice, but I'll be ready" for practice Saturday, Paul said. But will he be ready to play when the fifth-seeded Clippers open their Western Conference first-round playoff series at fourth-seeded Memphis on Sunday?

The romantic comedy "The Five-Year Engagement," starring Emily Blunt and Jason Segel, tackles the messy business of love in a time when commitment can be career-ending for one of the better halves. Since it is mostly told from a fairly evolved guy's point of view, it sounds so promising, so fresh, you want to root for these kids to get it right - not just the couple, but the filmmakers. Both have their moments, though not enough to keep the audience, or the couple, engaged for anything close to five years, which this two-hour film can sometimes feel like.

Re "A promise of unpredictability," Opinion, Jan. 2 Joseph Ellis offers Ronald Reagan as an example of a president reversing a position he took during a campaign, stating that Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire" and then negotiated an arms agreement with it. However, Reagan's "evil empire" speech was given in 1983 and can hardly be considered a campaign position. In his 1980 campaign, Reagan promised to increase military expenditures, end the grain embargo against the Soviet Union and enact tax reductions.

As someone who attended two years of community college, transferred to a University of California campus and is currently pursuing graduate studies, I was offended by the tone of "Cuts at UC Force Many to Consider Their 'Option,' " (May 2). These students should be grateful they have the opportunity to pursue an education at all. If that is their true goal, then being required to spend some time at a community college should not bother them, and should only increase the wealth and variety of their educational experience.

Burger King Corp.promised Wednesday to switch to only cage-free eggs and pork -- a day after the reemergence of mad-cow disease focused national scrutiny even more on Americans' food sources. The fast food giant, one of the largest in the world, said it would phase out cages for its chickens and gestation crates for breeding pigs by 2017 - making its pledge among the most sweeping of many such vows made recently by competitors such as McDonald's and Wendy's. Changes in animal welfare practices have swept the food service and supply industries in recent months, as undercover investigations by animal rights activists and concessions from major companies created a domino effect.

If you're Chinese or Brazilian, the wait for your U.S. visa may be over. OK, not completely over, but perhaps not as long as it once was. Against the backdrop of Disney World in Florida, President Obama acknowledged on Jan. 19 the importance of tourism to the U.S. economy and promised that the waits for visas, which published reports said often lasted three months, would improve. “We will always protect our borders and shores and our tourist destinations from people who want to do us harm,” Obama said.