Public Opinion

Where's Harper Lee? Where's Margaret Mitchell? Where's Ayn Rand? Where's John Irving? Where's William Burroughs? No Raymond Chandler? OK, they included Faulkner, Nabokov, Steinbeck and Hemingway. But where's "Absalom, Absalom!"? Where's "Laughter in the Dark"? "Of Mice and Men" and "East of Eden"? "The Old Man and the Sea" and "For Whom the Bell Tolls"?

Re "A faster track for gay rights," News Analysis, May 21 Based on public opinion, a Republican pollster warns that his party is on the wrong side of the same-sex marriage issue. But some of us consider that the right or wrong side of an issue is not determined by public opinion. Equating gay rights with civil rights is an oversimplification. Faith teaches us compassion for all people, including homosexuals, but this compassion is not commensurate with support for same-sex marriage.

To U.S. officials, a new pact announced this week with Vietnam, allowing the government to deport illegal immigrants, was almost routine -- a straightforward matter of treating Vietnam like other nations. But for many among the tens of thousands of immigrants in Orange County, the nation's largest Vietnamese population center, nothing about their homeland is routine.

In announcing that she was charging George Zimmerman with second-degree murder in the death of Trayvon Martin, special prosecutor Angela B. Corey insisted that "we do not prosecute by public pressure or by petition. " That's an important assurance; the government shouldn't bring a case except when allegations are backed up by facts and evidence. On the other hand, Corey wouldn't even have been in a position to assess the case against the neighborhood watch volunteer had there not been a public outcry about his release the night of the killing after what looked like a slipshod police investigation.

An overwhelming majority of Californians say they are fed up with illegal immigration, with 86% describing it as a major or moderate problem and nearly three-quarters in favor of using the National Guard to patrol the southern border, a new Los Angeles Times Poll has found.

A punchy jingle kicks off the promotional video of a French firm that sells Islamic women's swimwear. Models wearing brightly colored, full-body tunic, pant and hijab combos frolic at the sea's edge swinging their arms in free-spirited step with the music. The water-resistant burkinis , outfits that cover everything except a woman's face, hands and feet, are designed for Muslim women in search of "a little more modesty" so they can "have more freedom to play sports," according to the manufacturer.

Reporting from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and San Pedro Garza Garcia, Mexico -- The mayor had good news: A notorious thug from one of the drug cartels had been found killed. Hector "El Negro" Saldana would no longer menace the people of San Pedro Garza Garcia, Mexico. Trouble was, Saldana's body hadn't yet been discovered when Mayor Mauricio Fernandez made the announcement with a flourish at his swearing-in ceremony in October. How did Fernandez know about Saldana's demise hours before investigators found the body stuffed in a car hundreds of miles away in Mexico City?

The Haitian army gave a parade Monday and nobody came. The occasion was the annual celebration of Haiti's defeat of French forces at the battle of Vertieres in 1803, when the onetime slave colony sealed its bid for independence. But instead of celebrating the historic victory over Napoleon's army, the Haitian people turned their backs on the military, some literally.

Four Los Angeles police officers won acquittals Wednesday in their trial for the beating of black motorist Rodney G. King, igniting renewed outrage over a racially charged case that had triggered a national debate on police brutality. Hours after the verdicts were announced, angry demonstrators torched buildings, looted stores and assaulted passersby as civic leaders pleaded for calm. Gov.

Re "A faster track for gay rights," News Analysis, May 21 Based on public opinion, a Republican pollster warns that his party is on the wrong side of the same-sex marriage issue. But some of us consider that the right or wrong side of an issue is not determined by public opinion. Equating gay rights with civil rights is an oversimplification. Faith teaches us compassion for all people, including homosexuals, but this compassion is not commensurate with support for same-sex marriage.

The California desert sun can be relentlessly unforgiving. So too, it seems, can the tennis powerhouse Williams sisters. Eleven years have passed since Serena Williams was greeted with a booming chorus of boos in the women's finals and left for good. Venus did the same. And with the two-week BNP Paribas Open underway this week at the Indian Wells Tennis Gardens, still no sisters. "Even now, all these years later, we continue to boycott the event," Serena wrote in her 2009 autobiography.

So much for the dust-up over National League most valuable player Ryan Braun's testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs and potentially forfeiting the award to the Dodgers' Matt Kemp, who finished second in the voting. Braun's positive test result and the 50-game suspension that went with it were thrown out Thursday by baseball arbitrator Shyam Das, clearing the former Granada Hills High standout to play for the Milwaukee Brewers on opening day in April. It marked the first time a baseball player has successfully challenged a drug-related penalty in a grievance.

With his stocky frame, broad face, blue overalls and red helmet, Andrei Smirnov looks as though he just stepped from a Soviet-style postcard of the ideal working-class figure. The 45-year-old factory worker came to the Yaroslavl Engine Plant as a young man, getting a job at the same foundry where his father and mother worked, and where he and his younger sister continue the family tradition today. There was a time when the four of them worked together and he was happy, as he is happy now. But that has not always been the case.

A clear majority of likely voters in Los Angeles favor transferring control of struggling LA/Ontario International Airport from the city to a municipality in the Inland Empire, a new public opinion survey shows. The poll, which is part of a political strategy by the city of Ontario to wrest ownership of the facility from Los Angeles World Airports, is largely directed at Los Angeles City Council members and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who have resisted the idea in the past.

When Russian leader Vladimir Putin climbed into the martial arts ring in the Olimpiysky Palace in downtown Moscow recently to congratulate a Russian wrestler who had quite convincingly beaten his American opponent, he was greeted by an unfamiliar sound. The crowd, which, given the high ticket price, consisted mostly of wealthy and middle-class Russians, booed, with some shouting, "Go away!" The prime minister's press service later hurried to explain that it was a misunderstanding and that the audience last month was booing not Putin but American fighter Jeff Monson, who was being led away from the hall at the same time.

There's a shocking disconnect at work these days in the relationship between the public and government workers: The public is demanding greater accountability, and public employees — social workers, police, teachers, even state legislators — are finding ways to avoid it. Legislators contend that they should be allowed to conduct budget deliberations in private. Police unions are fighting forcefully to protect the names of officers involved in shootings or other uses of force.

Looking at Liu Re "Impaired judgment," Opinion, June 1 There is a reason that attacks like those made on Goodwin Liu, who recently asked that his nomination to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals be withdrawn, are called "Borking. " This horrible process began with the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's bizarre attack on Robert Bork, a recognized constitutional scholar whom President Reagan nominated to the Supreme Court. Ever since then, federal court nominees have been targeted by ideological opponents of the administration nominating them.

So much for the dust-up over National League most valuable player Ryan Braun's testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs and potentially forfeiting the award to the Dodgers' Matt Kemp, who finished second in the voting. Braun's positive test result and the 50-game suspension that went with it were thrown out Thursday by baseball arbitrator Shyam Das, clearing the former Granada Hills High standout to play for the Milwaukee Brewers on opening day in April. It marked the first time a baseball player has successfully challenged a drug-related penalty in a grievance.

By declaring that the last American troops will leave Iraq by the end of the year, President Obama signaled the official close to one of the longest, most politically contentious wars in U.S. history — and the end to an American attempt to transform the Middle East with military might. The soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines will leave behind a stumbling young democracy, still beset by sectarian violence and tilting closer to its neighbor, Iran, a bitter U.S. foe. They will return home to a country that has largely turned inward to face its own economic problems, and which long ago lost heart in a war fought in the name of protecting the world from weapons of mass destruction that were never found.

Those shocked by the inclusion of Chaz Bono on this season's "Dancing With the Stars" would do well to check out the ESPN documentary "Renée" — there is nothing new under the sun, not even transgender individuals taking center stage in a national competition of athletic prowess. From childhood, Dr. Renée Richards, born Richard Raskind, seemed destined for an extraordinary life, though none could guess it would include competing on the women's professional tennis circuit after having gender reassignment surgery at age 40. Raskind was an accomplished athlete all his life, playing tennis throughout his college career at Yale and while serving in the Navy.