Ronald

In 1986, lawmakers decided the problem of illegal immigration had to be dealt with. More than 3 million people were living in the United States after crossing the border illegally or overstaying their visas. A new law signed by President Ronald Reagan gave legal status and a path to citizenship to most of those unauthorized residents - helping many secure a slice of the American dream but also giving fuel to critics who sought to turn "amnesty" into a pejorative. Less than 30 years later, the number of immigrants living in the country illegally is thought to have nearly quadrupled, and the freighted baggage of amnesty looms over new efforts to reform the nation's immigration laws.

Ronald Belisario looks like a pitcher in search of himself. So far he's not finding the 2012 version. He is stumbling around like a guy struggling to discover the strike zone. Not helped by catcher Ramon Hernandez, Belisario gave up a pair of runs in the eighth inning Saturday in the first game of a doubleheader, the Dodgers falling 7-5 to the Orioles to drop their fifth consecutive game. The score was tied 5-5, Kenley Jansen recording four consecutive outs, when with one out in the eighth Manager Don Mattingly called on left-hander Paco Rodriguez.

I say to militias everywhere: "America, love it or leave it." RONALD A. REIS Calabasas

BALTIMORE -- Ronald Belisario was hunched over at his locker, his elbows resting on his knees. "Give me 10 minutes," he said. Once Belisario collected himself, he tried to convince his assembled audience, and perhaps himself, that everything would be fine. "I'm in a slump," Belisario said. "I'll be out of there soon. " Belisario was on the mound when the Dodgers gave up the go-ahead runs in a 7-5 defeat to the Baltimore Orioles in the first game of a doubleheader Saturday.

Re "36 Steps for Those Without the Wisdom to Know the Difference," by Patti Davis, Commentary, Feb. 28: Dear Patti: You may continue to shoot yourself in the foot if you must, but please don't shoot others. The desire to atone for one's mistakes should never come at the expense of another. Instead, I would like to suggest to you that you address George, who seems to want to emulate both Ronald's personality and policies. I can assure you that while Ronald's personality was charming, his policies hurt my family much more than Bill and Hillary's imperfections.

David Belnap obituary: The obituary of former Times foreign correspondent David Belnap in Tuesday's Section A said he was one of three children. Along with his brother, Ronald, and sister Ruth Hogan, he had another sister, Kathleen Hunter, who died in August.

The news media find it necessary to always identify Michael Reagan as the adopted son of President Reagan. It seems to me that this fact is less relevant than that Nancy is wife No. 2. I have yet to see "Nancy Reagan, second wife of President Ronald Reagan." Let's be fair. WILMA SPEARS STELLA Whittier

Were you here, Mikhail, for commerce and trade, For pacts and promises never before made? We need no agreements, complicated or fancy, We'll take you and Raisa for Ronald and Nancy. And to prove to your people the trust on our part, We'll even be willing to include Gary Hart. HELEN HOWARD El Toro

Ronald A. Forbess and N. Bruce Kramer have been appointed vice presidents in Hughes Aircraft's Industrial Electronics Group, Torrance. Forbess, 52, is manager of the group's electron dynamics division. Kramer, 52, is division manager of the microwave products division.

Police have found about 150 dead dogs packed in freezers in the basement of a house littered with feces and trash where more than 110 live dogs, mostly Chihuahuas, were rescued this week. Dearborn Police Chief Ronald Haddad said the 56-year-old man found Wednesday in the suburban Detroit home may have been living with an increasing number of dogs for three or four years.

If presidential politics ever involved time travel, President Obama might be in a little trouble. If an election between Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama were held today, 58% would vote for Reagan over Obama, according to a survey of 1,000 Americans age 18 and older conducted by Kelton Research for the National Geographic Channel. Though when the field is narrowed to people ages 18-34 -- those either too young to have known Reagan as president or too young to remember much -- the gap shrinks to 51% in favor of Reagan.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Ronald M. George, the California Chief Justice who wrote the historic 2008 ruling that gave same-sex couples the right to marry, is now retired. He was on a conference call Tuesday  morning about efforts to reform California's initiative process and did not now how the arguments had gone until noon. “It's been in the back of my mind,” said George, 73, a moderate Republican who retired from the court on Jan. 1, 2010. “This is something I could see coming back in 2004.

SACRAMENTO - State Sen. Jerry Hill grew up in San Francisco and vividly remembers the rare suffocating days of late summer when the fog fled and people sweltered. The city's natural air conditioner clicked off, temperatures soared into the 90s and - back then - the skies boiled into a toxic soup. "There'd be four or five hot days, around 1963 and 1964, when I was playing high school football and the smog was so thick I couldn't run 10 yards without stopping and choking to get air," remembers Hill, 65, new chairman of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee.

Ronald Dworkin Constitutional law expert and liberal scholar Ronald Dworkin, 81, an American philosopher, constitutional law expert and liberal scholar who argued that the law should be founded on moral integrity, died Thursday of leukemia in London, his family said. Dworkin, a professor of law at New York University and professor emeritus at University College London, was one of the best known and most quoted legal scholars in the United States and also an expert on British law. Dworkin was best known for the idea that the most important virtue the law can display is integrity - understood as the moral idea that the state should act on principle so each member of the community is treated as an equal.

One of the biggest problems in our politics is that people don't think for themselves. We let radio and television hosts, pundits and politicians tell us what to believe. And one of the biggest problems in our arts is that people don't enjoy for themselves. We let museum curators, gallery owners, critics and professors tell us what to feel. A recent battle in the art world illustrates the point. The billionaire Ronald Perelman is suing the multimillionaire art dealer Larry Gagosian on the grounds, among others, that Gagosian overvalued an unfinished sculpture of Popeye (yes, the Sailor Man)

He was remembered by patients and colleagues as a caring and talented physician, one who followed his father's footsteps into medicine. And his friends spoke of how devout he was in his Jewish faith as well as of his kindness and his zest for life. "He was just a good soul," one colleague and friend said. Now police are trying to determine why someone would walk into the urologist's Newport Beach offices and shoot him to death. Dr. Ronald Gilbert was killed Monday in an exam room of his practice in the heart of a bustling medical community, allegedly gunned down by a 75-year-old retired barber who recently told a neighbor that he had cancer and didn't expect to live much longer.

Sports on television reached a new low today [Aug. 3]. Besides having the most honor graduates from the School of Boring Sport Cliches as announcers, Fox Sports West must win the title of money grubber of the year for superimposing commercial messages on the playing court during the Martina Hingis-Monica Seles tennis match. It was disrupting, distracting and tacky. The mind boggles contemplating how far they will go with this practice. RONALD DE RUYTER Palmdale

Mr. Berdan's otherwise fascinating article about a little-known place ("Spice by the Sea," Sept. 19) is marred in paragraph two by a misstatement. The Portuguese did not "leave peaceably" in 1961. Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, the dictator of Portugal, ordered armed resistance to any Indian incursion, and the fact that little blood was shed in the Indian invasion doesn't make for leaving peaceably. RONALD S. THOMSON Los Angeles

Harmony. Gee, the Dodgers really love you.... Those arbitration cases can get so messy. A club having to argue against its own player. Best to be avoided. Best to be done with as soon as possible. Which is what the Dodgers did yet again Friday, coming to terms with their only two arbitration-eligible players, catcher A.J. Ellis and reliever Ronald Belisario. Both were what are called “super twos,” players with two years and at least 139 days of major-league service. The Dodgers agreed to one-year deals with both, Ellis signing for $2 million and Belisario for $1.45 million.

This Craftsman estate in Eagle Rock has been the site of events for 500 to 1,000 guests, including a presidential address by Ronald Reagan. Once the Western home of Milo Bekins, who for decades headed the U.S. moving company started by his father and uncle, the compound includes an outdoor stage, a stand for musicians with electrical hookup and three guesthouses. Location: 1554 Hill Drive, Los Angeles 90041 Asking price: $3.598 million Year built: 1925 Living space: nine bedrooms, 12 bathrooms, about 8,500 square feet Lot size: 2.81 acres Features: Two sitting rooms, a dining room that can seat 40, a pub, a billiards room, a gym, a greenhouse, a croquet court, a football/soccer field, a swimming pool About the area: In the third quarter, 48 single-family homes sold in the 90041 ZIP Code at a median price of $470,000, according to DataQuick.