You said "If newspapers die, so does reporting" - What I see is newspapers dying as a consequence of reporting's death - and I think this has been reflected in many, maybe most of the letters.

Second, regarding your concern about local reportage: I think you're off base there as well. Here's a couple of links to why: LA Observed (http://www.laobserved.com/), which includes a number of former LA Times staffers as regular contributors and does a creditable job covering local news, has this interesting column:

http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2009/02/extimes_reporters_elegy_f.php#more

wherein the author notes, much like Gary, that,

" What stories are we missing? I can answer that question only for myself, thinking of my life with my hometown paper.

Gone is the stuff my neighbors and relatives read, the straightforward news about their local communities, particularly in the suburban counties that ring Los Angeles, a county of ten million people and 88 cities. A decade ago, the Times fielded more than a dozen reporters in the some of the county's larger cities. Dozens more toiled in the big, growing areas that border L.A.--Ventura, Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange. Yes, those writers were young and green. Yes, they missed things, as inexperienced reporters do. But they were there. They watched council meetings and school board meetings and county supervisors meetings. They called the cops. They looked at court filings. The most ambitious dug deeply into problems of transportation and development.

But those places were among the first to face cuts, even before the Tribune Company took over the paper in 2000. Where dozens of reporters once worked, only small skeleton crews remain. There are fewer checks. Fewer meetings are witnessed. Fewer records are reviewed."

And yet, the blog in which this is reported is covering those affairs. As another example, in response to that very lack, both from the LA Times and the Pasadena Star-News, my community of Altadena has a blog to which we all contribute first-hand knowledge and cover such things as local council meetings. Take a look:

http://www.altadenablog.com/

I'd be surprised if this wasn't happening in a lot of places.

very much like Oakland airport, even after the renovations, or maybe especially after the renovations. The noise is painful there as well, but I think that's nearly a universal problem in US airports. If you'd like to see a pleasant, well-designed airport, go check out Traverse City airport - but they have an advantage in being small.

given that about 30,000 acres of Orange County spent the weekend on fire.

have ever even sat up front in a plane. I used to be on faculty for a medical center in a state that was 500 miles across. I was on the graduation committee, so when one of our campuses across the state had graduation, we would pack up myself and assorted deans into one of the state planes, usually a 6 or 8 seater twin jet prop named after some Indian tribe or other. Sitting up front is not everybody's cup of tea, and we usually filled the plane, so I usually rode up front on the right. Things are very different from that perspective. I wore headphones because it's noisy and because it's interesting listening in on what's going on. Now, if I mentally scale those experiences up to a large passenger jet, I'm really impressed.

There must needs be a way of preventing the return of these scoundrels. In addition, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is very appealing. Not only South Africa, but South Korea used the device to address the appalling actions of its leaders during the 1980s in particular. Torture was rife, citizens were repressed and jailed for dissent, and there was the infamous Kwangju massacres. During ex-President Noh's administration, the commission turned over all those rocks, including ex-dictators Roh and Chun especially, and from my viewpoint as something of an outsider, it was very effective. Full testimony and truth in exchange for no prosecution. But certainly complete disgrace and loss of any reputation. South Korea has a much more group-oriented, Confucian society, as opposed to our highly individualistic culture, so group opprobrium is much more effective there. Therefore we would need additional mechanisms to ensure that those disgraced individuals could not return to power, but beyond that, I think the commission idea would work well.

for this statement: "only a small minority is actually affected by DOMA's injustices"

We in California have deprived a group of people of their rights. That is a horrifying action for all of us.

Also, Glenn, an action I'd like to see is the entire group you refer to as "Beltway World", flushed out of there in disgrace and ridicule. They have been so wrong for so many years; it astounds me that they still have such credibility even in DC.

As an Angeleno who's watched the rapid deterioration of the LA times under Trib ownership, I'm not sure that's accurate.

this isn't "mobile phone dermatitis", it's plain old nickle dermatitis. Clearly someone's hoping to sell newspapers, so to speak, by calling it "mobile phone dermatitis". Nickle is the commonest cause of allergic dermatitis - second commonest are fragrances in soaps, shampoos, detergent, and such.

but I don't suppose either of these teams' games are broadcast anywhere, are they?

I think the term is being used just as as scare word, devoid of meaning. There is a more accurate term for operating a government this way, though, and while I don't want to let it loose here, this page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism

lays it out pretty thoroughly.