Revisiting ‘Ravine’ and bidding adieu to Brian Williams

Next-gen ‘Culture Clash’

Thank you for your theater critic Charles McNulty’s column on Culture Clash and their refashioning of “Chavez Ravine” for this digital age [“Culture Clash Revisits ‘Ravine,’” Nov. 3]. A pleasure to read.

McNulty’s description of the action and its historical context — and his perspective — are appreciated. It’s hard for me to believe it’s been nearly 20 years since I wrote about the original production at the Mark Taper Forum (for KNX Newsradio). The play remains a valuable piece.

As a sidebar, I lived in La Loma when I was a kid. My family moved to Lincoln Heights a few years before the bulldozers arrived. I recommend Eric Nusbaum’s “Stealing Home,” an excellent book on the subject.

Luis Torres
Pasadena

Editor’s note: Luis Torres is an L.A. journalist who has written for the Los Angeles Times.

Anchor away

Regarding: “NBC News Stalwart Will Leave” [Nov. 10, by Stephen Battaglio]: Among the many cable news anchors turned commentators in recent years, Brian Williams, soon to take a career break from MSNBC, always struck me as the classiest and most watchable.

John M. Wilson
West Hollywood

Royally depressing

Justin Chang’s review of “Spencer” was excellent [“Happily Ever After? Hardly.” Nov. 5]. I’m sure the ever-depressing actress Kristen Stewart is brilliant in her portrayal of Diana Spencer, the ever-depressed princess.

Queen Elizabeth is a depressing example of a royal married more to Britain than she was to her husband or her children. Prince Charles is a depressingly poor excuse for a future king. Prince Harry is a depressed man-child who is married to a social climber.

The only bright lights in this depressed royal family are William and Kate, and their most important job may be to save their children from the royally depressed royals. Diana couldn’t get away from the royal depressions but at least she tried.

Mark Walker
Yorba Linda

A bright Calendar Sunday

Thank you for starting my day on such a positive note with two fascinating articles side by side: the Charles McNulty/Justin Chang exchange on [“The Movie Musical Boom,” Nov. 14] and Yvonne Villarreal’s story [“Loving Lucy,” Nov. 14] about the upcoming Lucy and Desi movie “Being the Ricardos.”

How do I decide which one to take a group of my friends to see on New Year’s Eve?

Then there’s the still from “West Side Story,” which captures the energy of the new Steven Spielberg film. I still have the souvenir program from the original “West Side Story” that I purchased at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in 1961 when I was 15 years old.

Saul Saladow
Los Angeles

Is sunshine overrated?

Regarding “Dark days at UCSB” [about windowless dorm rooms, Nov. 2, by Carolina A. Miranda]: Sailors sleep in no-window rooms for months while on duty. Travelers pay lots of money for windowless interior rooms on cruise ships. Why not allow students to save money?

Neal Scribner
Thousand Oaks

Far right, far out

Regarding “False Flag Claim Flies Here” [Nov. 3, by Stephen Battaglio]: It has been decided to revive the nearly forgotten Joseph Goebbels Award for Political Babble Pretending to Be Rational Speech to Tucker Carlson of Fox News. For the moment there are no other contestants for the award — but we are keeping an open mind.

Carleton Cronin
West Hollywood

::

Geraldo Rivera and the Fox News Washington bureau claim that Carlson’s statements and reporting are baseless, yet the article calls his production a “documentary.” Oxford Languages defines “documentary” as “a movie or radio program that provides a factual record or report.”

Would you like to rethink your description? I can think of one; it starts with “bull.”

Barry Davis
Agoura Hills

::

Tucker Carlson suffers from foot-in-mouth syndrome. Lying to the public about a Jan. 6 conspiracy is a reflection of Carlson’s lack of integrity.

Keeping Carlson gainfully employed is a lack of conscientiousness by Fox News.

Kudos to the exodus of major sponsors who don’t want to be associated with Carlson’s views.

Bunny Landis
Oceanside

::

When the mainstream media “backpaged” the white nihilist riots in Portland and Seattle that followed the mostly peaceful BLM protests, they forgot that a lot of folks actually believed that what had happened in those cities was an insurrection.

What they saw was that the mayors of those cities let the riots continue in order to defeat Trump. When the mainstream media gave massive attention to the Jan. 6 riot, a lot of folks felt betrayed by the frightened media’s coverage of an event that lasted less than four hours as compared with the months-long riots in the Northwest.

Many people characterized the Capitol “insurrection” as a “copycat” riot that followed in the footsteps of the far-left riots in Seattle and Portland.

Tucker Carlson is wrong about the causes of the “insurrection” but he is right on one thing: The mainstream media can’t be trusted to find out where the Jan. 6 rioters got the idea that they could storm the Capitol.

Mark Walker
Yorba Linda

::

“Let’s go, Tucker!” What a great gig, getting millions of dollars each week to lie about, bash and slander Democrats, liberals, progressives, leftists and anyone who exposes your grift without fear of any repercussion.

“Let’s go, Fox Nation!” It must be comforting to have a network solely dedicated to catering to your white nationalism, white supremacy, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, anti-mask, anti-vaccine, anti-democracy, Trump infatuation, Jan. 6 Capitol love fest, and COVID-19 pandemic denials.

“Let’s go, Rupert Murdoch!” It has to be a good feeling knowing that you are so rich that you can literally buy all the media outlets, hire the likes of Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, et al., willing to spout your propaganda, and mold America and the world to your whims.

“Let’s go, GOP!” Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy congratulations: By rejecting and obstructing anything the Biden administration does, you have created enough distrust and chaos that “Build Back Better” will fail and the rich will retain all the wealth and power.

“Let’s go, Trump!” Your “Big Lie” will “make America great again”?

Nelson Sagisi
Santa Maria

Predictable tragedy?

Regarding “History of Chaos at Rapper’s Gigs” [Nov. 8, by August Brown]: There are probably a lot of people who could have predicted the Nov. 5 tragedy.

Evidently a typical Travis Scott gig is known for mayhem. The rapper is known for encouraging chaos and supporting the defiance of security at his shows.

Sounds a lot like Donald Trump on Jan. 6.

Joe Kevany
Mt. Washington