Press Telegram

Bush's Message: 'I Can't'

The president won't be happy until he dons a yellow slicker and actually takes the place of Anderson Cooper, violently blown about by Rita as he talks into a camera lens lashed with water, hanging onto a mailbox as he's hit by a flying pig in a squall, sucked up by a waterspout in the eye of the storm over the Dry Tortugas. Then maybe he'll go back to the White House and do his job instead of running down to the Gulf Coast for silly disaster- ops every other day.

The Media's

10 deadly sins What we need in this country -- along with a disaster relief agency -- is a Media Accountability Day. One precious day out of the entire year when everyone in the news media stops reporting on what's wrong with everyone else and devotes a complete 24-hour news cycle to looking at our own failures.

A Prisoner of Populism

SACRAMENTO -- His political strength hemorrhaging from multiple wounds -- some self-inflicted, others the result of a barrage of negative advertising -- the governor, his job approval below 40 percent, is nevertheless ebullient. He cannot be pretending. He is not that good an actor. Arnold Schwarzenegger -- tanned, tan suit, open-collared shirt, running shoes -- will run for re-election in 2006, but first, he says cheerfully, these next seven weeks will be "the rebuttal' to the ad assault fro...

Pay Raises

It appears the LBUSD board needs to go back to school for basic math ["LBUSD pay hike raises hackles," Local News, Sept. 21]. [Board President] Suja Lowenthal stated that the 2.26 percent raise for about 1,000 selected nonunion employees and administrators was in keeping with the district's policy of equitable increases. When a principal's salary is over $100,000 and receives a 2.26 percent increase, the raise becomes $2,260. When a 10-year veteran teacher's salary of $55,000 receives a 2.26 ...

Cleaning Up City Halls

Citizens, investigators are blowing the whistle

Welcome to Hard Time

The U.S. legal system's historic leniency bias in white collar crime cases may finally be history. Another white-collar criminal, Tyco's L. Dennis Kozlowski, has earned a sentence appropriate to his egregious crimes. Kozlowski was sentenced Monday to eight and one-third years to 25 years in New York State prison, and must pay $134 million in restitution and $70 million in fines. He's expected to serve at least eight years. Tyco's former finance chief, Mark Swartz, was given the same jail sent...

Filthy School Buses

If you've ever driven behind an old school bus, you've noticed that the diesel exhaust is sickening. Fortunately, you can close your vehicle's vents. But if you're a rider on that bus, you have to breathe it. Those riders, by the way, are your children, and that diesel exhaust can cause cancer. We've long wondered why these old, belching school buses are still on the road, especially in light of the fervor in which parents and legislators have waged war on sugary treats on school campuses. We...

Digest

two deck head Bodies may be Jewish slave laborers from WWII

Poverty

Rich Lowry's "More fuel for the welfare state" [Comment, Sept. 21] was at best objectionable and at worst, an insider look at what so many radical conservatives in this country think about poverty in general -- it is the fault of the poor people in this country. Lowry implies that so much is being done for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, including private school vouchers for children who were from families likely too poor to afford a car. This is an outright lie. The real blame belongs to o...

Television

Editor's note: On satellite systems, some events are televised on Eastern time, three hours earlier than listed here. BASEBALL

Hard Workers

I'm glad somebody is finally speaking up for mail carriers [Letters, Sept. 21]. They work hard for their money, and it's about time they get some recognition. Poverty

'Be Assured That the Death of Your Son Will Have Meaning. For I Give You Also My Solemn Pledge That Our Country Will Persist and Will Prevail in the Cause for Which Your Boy Died.'

President Lyndon B. Johnson, to parents of a posthumous recipient of the Medal of Honor on April 6, 1967 "These brave men and women gave their lives for a cause that is just and necessary for the security of our country, and now we will honor their sacrifice by completing their mission.'

Northwest to Lay Off 1,400

MINNEAPOLIS Northwest Airlines Corp. said Wednesday it will lay off 1,400 flight attendants by January as it shrinks in bankruptcy, just months after it re-hired some of them. The flight attendants union also said Northwest is pressing to use more locally hired, nonunion flight attendants on overseas flights as another way to save money a proposal the union said would result in the outsourcing of those jobs to cheaper labor markets overseas and which it will fight.

The First Day of Christmas

GET IN THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT: Now that summer's gone, you can pretty much stick a fork in fall, which leaves us with Christmas, if you follow. Seems like it was only nine months ago, we were stuffing Santa back up the chimney and yet, here he is again! Happily, because we're way ahead of the stodgier traditional media, to say nothing of the calendar, in announcing the holiday season's arrival, you still have plenty of time to shop, though why procrastinate all the way until Halloween when you ca...

Key Dem to Support Roberts

WASHINGTON Chief Justice nominee John Roberts picked up an important Democratic endorsement Wednesday even as Senate leaders cautioned President Bush that his next Supreme Court nominee will probably face a far more contentious confirmation battle. Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the most senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced his support to recommend that the full Senate confirm Roberts as the nation's 17th chief justice.

Miramax Minimized

Less than two weeks before he officially takes over the reins as CEO of The Walt Disney Co., Bob Iger said the Burbank-based conglomerate will be dramatically scaling down the output from its Miramax Films division now that founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein have departed. "Miramax under them had basically become a major studio,' Iger said at Goldman Sachs Communicopia Conference in New York. "We're still in the Miramax business but it will be reconstructed to look more like what they started.'

Gas Watch

The lowest per-gallon gas prices in the Long Beach area on Wednesday as reported by www.losangelesgasprices.com * $2.79, Shell, 5170 Long Beach Blvd., Long Beach

Poll: Kia Really Satisfies

DETROIT The Kia Amanti was the highest ranked mid-size car in a customer satisfaction survey released Wednesday by J.D. Power and Associates, marking the first time an entry from Korean automaker Kia Motor Co. made it to the top of the list. Porsche, Land Rover, Lexus, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz and Infiniti were the highest ranked nameplates in the study, which measures owners' delight at the design, content, layout and performance of their new vehicles. All six brands received more than 900 poin...

Americans Hang Loosebefore Presidents Cup

GAINESVILLE, Va. Having failed in the pressurized world of team golf competition, maybe a little more relaxed atmosphere is all the United States needs. At least that's the theory floating around heading into today's opening of the Presidents Cup competition at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club. The top U.S. players will take on an International team of non- European players with pride and national honor at stake for four days culminating Sunday. But players on both sides insist this event is enti...

Squid Arriving Early at Catalina

I have some good news. Squid, by the thousands, have shown up at Catalina Island! They're unusually early, but that's OK with me. When squid arrive for their winter spawning, they are almost always followed closely, first by schools of white sea bass and soon after that by yellowtail.