Simon

I agree that Simon's remark about homosexuals is unforgivable. I am, however, reminded how annoyed I was when Jane Fonda was refused a position on the Arts Council of the State of California because of her political attitude. Fonda's political attitude should have noting to do with that appointment. On the same line, Simon is one of the best critics extant. Simon knows what should be done in a play or movie. Simon is a gadfly that we sorely need more of. ARTHUR L. FINN Los Angeles

Two French drivers topped the speed charts in Friday's second practice for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, the second race of the season in the Verizon IndyCar Series. Simon Pagenaud turned the fastest lap at 102.457 mph at the 1.97-mile, 11-turn course on the city's seaside streets. Three-time Long Beach winner Sebastien Bourdais was second with a speed of 102.440 mph. They were followed by rookie Jack Hawksworth, defending Long Beach winner Takuma Sato and two-time Long Beach winner Will Power.

"Simon and the Oaks" is a two-hour theatrical feature that has the kind of emotional and storytelling reach regularly found these days only in cable TV miniseries. It's a warmly done family and personal drama that seems to cover familiar territory, but only up to a point and very much in its own way. Given that "Simon" follows the fortunes of two interlinked Swedish families from 1939 to 1952, it's not surprising that the source material is a bestselling novel, in this case one by Marianne Fredricksson that has been translated into 25 languages and sold more than 4 million copies worldwide.

At a time when museums seem to be torn between blockbusters and specialized scholarship, it's refreshing to come across "In the Land of Snow: Buddhist Art of the Himalayas" at the Norton Simon Museum, a no-nonsense exhibition that spares the bells and whistles to make a strong case for the virtues of amateurism. Not that long ago, before America was a nation of over-professionalized experts, pretension was something to be made fun of and it was OK to be an amateur. The word's Latin root is "lover.

I thought the article on former Treasury Secretary William E. Simon ("Bill Simon's Alchemy," Sept. 27) was excellent as well as informative and gutsy. I was also appalled at the apparent deviousness and outright mendacity of Simon. It was shocking to think that Simon may be typical of our current crop of business leaders. JULES FIELD Los Angeles

Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois, a scholarly liberal, said today he will run for the Democratic presidential nomination on the traditional issues of jobs, education and civil rights. Simon, 58, a first-term senator who previously served 10 years in the House, said he will formally enter the race May 18. In the interim he has authorized formation of an exploratory committee. "This great country can be a better country.

Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) was greeted by a chorus of boos and jeers Monday when he told a national convention of county officials that Marine Lt. Col. Oliver L. North should not be portrayed as a hero. "I don't question the sincerity of Lt. Col. North, but he is not an American hero," the candidate for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination said at the National Assn. of Counties convention.

Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois, a Democratic presidential contender, said today he doubts Congress will try to impeach President Reagan as a result of the Iran- contra scandal because the nation needs stability in the White House. Simon, in an interview following an Iowa campaign appearance, said a call for impeachment will be considered if there is "absolute proof" Reagan was involved. But he added the "mood of Congress" is against such an undertaking.

Why did Nelson and Winnie Mandela, visiting earlier this year, thank Simon for "helping"? I would like to think that they understood and appreciated what Simon endured at the hands of the United Nations and other groups misjudging and condemning him so passionately. CARLA MILES, San Diego

Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois became the chief beneficiary of the collapse of Delaware Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s presidential campaign Wednesday, when almost all of Biden's former Iowa campaign staff--along with Biden's most influential supporter in the state--announced they were joining Simon's presidential campaign. Almost all of the remaining Democratic candidates had sought the group's support.

Simon Cowell has regrets, but his baby son's not one. How that baby started off, well, that's another story. Cowell, of course, was caught in an affair last summer with now-girlfriend Lauren Silverman, who was still married to Cowell pal Andrew Silverman when little Eric-to-be was conceived. "I regret that part," Cowell tells the Mirror . "But then of course you have a baby and you look at the baby and you kinda go, 'This is what happened from it.' "In this situation you are not going to come out of this well because of the circumstances.

Pity the middle-aged. Youth and longevity conspire to steal our attention, especially when both are present. This weekend a Simone and a Simon, separated by 75 years, will perform at concerts, separated by a few miles and less than 24 hours apart.  On Saturday, Simone Porter, a 17-year-old violin prodigy studying at the Colburn School, will make her debut with the Pasadena Symphony as soloist in Bruch's Violin Concerto. Also making his Pasadena debut is conductor Andrew Grams, music director of the Elgin Symphony in Illinois.  Porter, who hails from Seattle and whose professional debut with the Seattle Symphony was seven years ago when she was 10, will then, with remarkable speed, go on to make more SoCal debuts as soloist with the Pacific Symphony next month and, this summer, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl.

Simon Schama, the British historian and television personality and name-in-the-title host of "Simon Schama's History of Britain," "Simon Schama's Power of Art," "Simon Schama's Shakespeare" and "Simon Schama's Obama's America," is back with "Simon Schama's The Story of the Jews. " Premiering Tuesday on PBS, it attempts to distill 3,000 years of Jewish history into five hours of TV and does a fine, if necessarily incomplete, job of it. Like many British documentaries - the series originally aired in September on the BBC - "The Story of the Jews" comes with a personal touch.

When telling a tale that includes centuries of endurance, moments of triumph, bursts of humor and sudden, unspeakable atrocities, what's the right tone with which to articulate it all? That's the trick historian Simon Schama had to figure out in his new documentary, "The Story of the Jews," which begins in the Middle Eastern desert about 3,000 years ago and tracks up to the more-or-less present. The program, in five hourlong parts, broadcasts on PBS on Tuesday and April 1. "I wanted to say, without putting on a ridiculous smiley face or making light of the tragic aspects, that there is a story to be told beyond one clearly framed by the assumption of catastrophe," the British historian said in Pasadena.

"McCanick" features the late "Glee" star Cory Monteith in his final role. He plays Simon Weeks, a hustler who has just completed his prison sentence after a cop named McCanick (David Morse) framed him for killing a congressman. Against his captain's order, McCanick seeks Simon out. Here we have a police procedural that pretty much rejects standard operating procedure, leaving the audience to wonder whether writer Daniel Noah meant to create such an unbelievably sloppy and reckless officer or simply didn't do any homework on law-enforcement protocol.

Whatever you might say about Simon Schama, one of our most prominent and accomplished narrative historians, you can't say he's afraid to tackle broad and challenging subjects. "The Story of the Jews" is the first of a two-volume work aimed at covering 3 millenniums, from 1000 BCE to the present day, with the break coming at 1492 and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella. That's a lot of ground to cover, greater geographically if not in chronological terms than Schama's last multi-volume work, a three-tome "History of Britain" published in 2000-02 that reached all the way back to 3500 BC. Like that work, the scale of "The Story of the Jews" was dictated by the requirement of a television documentary series, scheduled to begin airing on PBS toward the end of this month.

Sen. Paul Simon, a tweedy yet folksy liberal Democrat from Southern Illinois' Little Egypt region, formally threw his trademark bow tie into the presidential sweepstakes Monday, declaring a candidacy that will deliberately stress thoughtfulness over flash. "Nineteen eighty-eight is not going to be the year for a candidate slickly packaged like some new soft drink," declared Simon, 58, to a cheering, overflow house at an auditorium on the Southern Illinois University campus here. " . . .

Former Treasury Secretary William E. Simon earned a sizable personal fortune and an even larger reputation as king of the leveraged buyout on Wall Street in the early 1980s. But these days his sights are set on a far greater, and potentially more lucrative, target--the Pacific Basin. At 59, Simon envisions himself as master of a vast international merchant bank reaching from headquarters in Los Angeles to the emerging profit centers of Japan, Hong Kong and Australia.

MARCH 28-AUG. 25 'In the Land of Snow: Buddhist Art of the Himalayas' Pasadena's Norton Simon Museum is well-known for having the most impressive collection of European Old Master and early Modern paintings in Los Angeles. Less familiar is the museum's exceptional Indian, Nepalese and Tibetan art. This show will chronicle the movement of Buddhism from India to the Himalayas more than a thousand years ago, bringing numerous important loans together with superlative examples of painting, sculpture, ritual and decorative arts from the Simon's own collection.

Perhaps appropriately for this music-mad editor, two of this week's Great Reads were about dancing. (And no, that's not why they were chosen. The writing in both happened to be lovely.) The first, which ran Tuesday, was all about the joy of being silly, about letting go and having fun. Yes, you may be 6 feet tall and weigh 300 pounds, but you can put on tight polyester blue shorts like your high school coach used to wear and dance with abandon in front of thousands of people. The second story, which ran Thursday, was more spiritual.