On this week's edition of Pacific Time, hosted by Times Editorial Broadcast Manager Michelle Maltais:

Foreign Editor Bruce Wallace looks at world news from the past week; Business columnist Tom Petruno discusses how mutual funds did this past quarter; City Hall reporter Phil Willon and columnist Steve Lopez give their slightly different takes on the city's budget crisis; and Hugo Martin has some tips on getting hotel deals.

Take a listen to this week's Pacific Time podcast:

Pacific Time

City Hall reporter Phil Willon will be chatting with readers at 11 a.m. about the city's budget turmoil.

L.A. City Hall reporter Phil Willon will be chatting with readers about the city's budget turmoil and the drastic steps Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has proposed, including shutting down city services two days a week.

As Willon and colleagues Maeve Reston and David Zahniser have reported, a key piece of the budget puzzle is $73.5 million that the City Council wants the DWP to turn over, but which the agency has refused to do. 

What do you think: Should the DWP turn over the money? Is closing down city agencies two days a week the right thing to do? Would the mayor and council actually take such a step, or is it political posturing?

Come back to latimes.com/readers at 11 a.m. Friday to ask Willon your questions.

Photo: Phil Willon - Credit: Los Angeles Times

Articles in The Times often point out the historical significance of an event, especially when it is a first. Kathryn Bigelow was the first woman to win an Oscar for best director. Canada won the first North American gold medal in ice dancing. Even the first baby of the year often gets his or her photo in the paper.

But what happens when something widely reported to be a first actually isn’t?

In an article Feb. 12, Jean Merl wrote about Rep. Diane Watson’s planned retirement from Congress, saying the 76-year-old Democratic congresswoman, who was initially elected to represent her Los Angeles district in 2001, could count many accomplishments in her long political career:

Watson's announcement brought the former teacher and school psychologist accolades from across the political firmament, in which she has been a trailblazing fixture since winning an uphill race for the Los Angeles Board of Education in 1975. She was the first black woman elected to the board, as the district was grappling with school integration.

However, an e-mail a couple of weeks later from Jefferson Crain, executive officer of the LAUSD Board of Education, launched a flurry of research that revealed that Watson was in fact not the first black woman elected to the school board. As it turns out, Fay E. Allen has that distinction, having won a school board race in 1939.

But before there was research, there were questions.

Crain had sent his e-mail to Howard Blume, who covers the LAUSD. It was forwarded to Assistant Managing Editor Henry Fuhrmann, who serves as the newsroom’s standards editor, and who began poking around. Merl was surprised to have the statement questioned because it was something The Times and other organizations have reported over the years, and it is included in the biographical information on Watson’s website. Richard Simon had used the same statistic in his story a day earlier, and The Times’ archives show it was cited previously in 1991 and 2001.

Could Crain be right?

This week marks the debut of Pacific Time, a weekly podcast hosted by Times editorial broadcast manager Michelle Maltais. Pacific Time will check in with Los Angeles Times reporters and editors on a selection of the week's stories, coverage, columns and ongoing conversations.

This week: Megan Stack on the roots of the violence in Russia, Michael Hiltzik on challenges facing healthcare implementation, Evan Halper with a preview of the USC-Los Angeles Times poll and David Sarno on the iPad.

Take a listen:

Pacific Time

Times Test Kitchen Manager Noelle Carter will be chatting with readers at 11 a.m. She'll talk about creating a memorable Easter meal and will answer your food-related questions.

Photo: Carter, left, in the Los Angeles Times test kitchen with interns. Credit: KCRW

Times database editor Doug Smith, photographer Francine Orr and former Times reporter T. Christian Miller have been recognized by Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) for their stories on the plight of civilian contract workers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

IRE gave the three its online reporting award for work published jointly by the Los Angeles Times and ProPublica, where Miller is now a senior reporter. Also cited for their contributions were Pratap Chatterjee, a freelance journalist, and Avni Patel of ABC News, which aired broadcasts based on the reporting.

Miller began work on the project while still at The Times, and after his departure he continued to collaborate with Smith and Francine. Smith provided data analysis, and Orr traveled across the United States and to the Philippines to illustrate the subject in photos.

The work, published in The Times as a series of occasional articles titled “Forgotten Warriors” and at propublica.org under the heading “Disposable Army,” focused on civilians hired by the Pentagon to drive trucks, cook meals and perform other support services in the two war zones. The IRE judges said the reporting was “remarkable for its depth and complexity in digging into the American government’s shabby treatment of the contractors who were injured like soldiers but have had to battle for basic care and benefits.”

Times Test Kitchen Manager Noelle Carter has an enviable job, overseeing the testing of all the recipes that appear in The Times' Food section.

Carter writes the Culinary SOS column, which provides readers with their favorite restaurant recipes, and walks you through the preparations. She also appears on KTLA Channel 5's twice-weekly Eat Beat segment. 

She'll be chatting with readers about creating a memorable Easter meal and answering your questions at 11 a.m. Friday. Come back to latimes.com/readers to take part.

Washington bureau reporter James Oliphant will be chatting at 11 a.m. Pacific time about the healthcare overhaul and its political implications.

 James Oliphant from the Washington Bureau will be chatting with readers on Friday about the healthcare legislation passed by the House on Sunday night and signed by President Obama on Tuesday.

Oliphant covered the reaction House Democrats were receiving from constituents the day after the historic vote, and the next day wrote about Republican strategies for fighting the legislation.

Come back to latimes.com/readers at 11 a.m. Friday to ask him your questions about the political process and potential fallout in Congress from the legislation's passage.

For supporters of healthcare reform, President Obama’s signing of the legislation passed by the House on Sunday night was a big deal. A really big deal. A big … deal, according to Vice President Joe Biden, who filled in the blank with the f-word. Biden muttered the comment to Obama after introducing him at the bill-signing event, but a live microphone picked up the remark.

To The Times, Biden’s use of the f-word is a big … deal in itself.  The Times has not published the f-word since 1998, and that was in excerpts from the Starr Report, an investigation of President Clinton by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. And since 1985, The Times has never spelled out f-ing.

So, what to do in this case?

The Times’ guidelines on obscenity and taste issues state, in part:

Obscenities, profanity, vulgarities and coarse language, even in their milder forms, should not be used in The Times -- in print or online -- unless they are germane to the essence of a story.

Only compelling reasons -- uses that are essential to conveying a major point of a story or that are necessary to cast significant light on the character of a person being quoted -- are acceptable, and such instances will be extremely rare. Offending terms should be eliminated, or paraphrased (but without using language that still hints at the original), or excised by use of ellipses.

Do not replace an offending word with bracketed insertions such as [expletive deleted] or with hyphens or dashes, as this only invites the reader to fill in the blanks.

Was using the f-word essential to conveying the main point of the story, or would the usage cast significant light on Biden’s character?

No, said Richard Nelson, The Times’ national copy desk chief, who argued against using the word or setting it off with dashes. He thought the paper should follow the same standard as when then-Vice President Dick Cheney used the word in a curse at Sen. Patrick Leahy on the Senate floor in 2004. In that article, Cheney is quoted as having told Leahy, “Go … yourself.”

Additionally, the 2004 article was solely about the exchange between Cheney and Leahy. Biden’s quote was to appear as a side note to the larger news that Obama had signed the healthcare legislation.

So The Times used ellipses in Wednesday’s Page 1 article as well:

Vice President Joe Biden – as he embraced Obama – was caught by an open microphone using an obscenity, exclaiming, “This is a big ... deal.”

The debate over healthcare legislation draws quite a bit of reader comment. A Q&A article Friday, "Reform, objectively," was no exception, except, unfortunately, the reaction was for a different reason.

An illustration that was intended to fade into the background of the article on the Op-Ed page instead was so dark that it blocked out a fair portion of the text.

Callers were frustrated:

“The article seems like it would be good to read except that you have put an eagle over the printing. It’s dark. Doesn’t make sense.”

“You’re making your Op-Ed page too decorative, which causes print to be unreadable. It’s very difficult.”

“The medical symbol interferes with reading the article. If you want us to read it, don’t make it hard.”

The illustration, by Wes Bausmith, is clever. It’s a takeoff on the caduceus, a symbol commonly used for medicine. But instead of intertwined snakes on the staff, it has two question marks.

Michael Whitley, assistant managing editor for design, said it was simply a mistake. The percentage of black used in the illustration was too high, he said, which caused it to print much darker than intended. The designer had made a proof of the page, but the light printout appeared to be fine. Checking it Friday on another proofer, after the page was published, revealed it to be too dark.

In the article, Jon Healey answers some questions about the healthcare overhaul with answers drawn mainly from the text of the Senate-passed healthcare bill, HR 3590, and the proposed reconciliation bill, HR 4872. The full article, which includes more questions and answers than were published in print, can be found at latimes.com/opinion.

--Deirdre Edgar

Twitter: @LATreadersrep

Melissa Henderson, a children’s librarian at the Glencoe Public Library in Illinois, wrote to Times Library Director Cary Schneider this week, looking for help in obtaining a Times article from 1999:

I lead a book group for kids and parents, and I am hoping to put my hands on an article from February 2, 1999. The book, “Any Small Goodness” by Tony Johnston, has chapter called The Coach that leads with the epigraph: “If you find yourself on the Mountain, either you've always lived here, or you've wandered badly...” -- L.A. Times, February 2, 1999.

The excerpt is from a Column One article by Times staff writer Julie Cart about former Lakers star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s work with young basketball players on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona:

The land rises sharply. Baldy Peak, at 11,590 feet, presides over lush forests of ponderosa pine and deep red rock valleys cut by snow-fed rivers. Covering 1.5 million acres near the New Mexico border, the Fort Apache Indian Reservation is as beautiful as it is empty.

"No one comes through here, not really," said Kyle Goklish, who attends Alchesay High School, home to the White Mountain Apache Tribe. The observation is true. If you find yourself on the Mountain, either you've always lived here, or you've wandered badly off U.S. Highway 60.

The chapter in Johnston’s book, which is targeted at 9- to 12-year-olds, is a fictionalized account of Abdul-Jabbar’s efforts, Henderson said. Johnston adapted the tale to an unnamed basketball star at a primarily Latino school in Los Angeles.

Henderson wanted to use the article to explain to students in the book group how story ideas and elements could be plucked from real life.

Cart, who won a Pulitzer Prize last year for explanatory reporting, was unaware that her Column One had been excerpted in the book. But she was happy to hear that it was being shared, 11 years later, with young readers, many of whom probably were not born when the article was published.

Much of The Times’ archive from the last 20 years has been made available online, Schneider said, and is accessible for free by searching through Google. Story reprints and commemorative pages are also available through latimes.com.

--Deirdre Edgar

Twitter: @LATreadersrep

The Times' design, photography, graphics and magazine art direction departments received top honors Monday in two international journalism competitions.

The Times received 100 total awards in the Society for News Design best of design creative competition, the most of any publication. It is the sixth time in seven years that The Times has earned the top spot (the other finish being for second place).

And the visual journalism department won premier honors in the 67th annual Pictures of the Year International competition. The staff set the gold standard for picture editing by earning the Angus McDougall Overall Excellence in Editing Award. The judges praised The Times' work for "its consistent approach and dedication to photojournalism in both print and multimedia." This marks the fifth time in seven years The Times has won this award.

"We are pleased to be recognized by our peers for what our readers expect of us each and every day: imaginative, creative display of first-rate journalism, which includes outstanding visual and audio storytelling," Editor Russ Stanton said.

Highlights of the SND awards include:

-- A silver medal for Kelli Sullivan's individual design portfolio, the only medal given for news design portfolio.

-- A silver medal for staff photo portfolio, the only medal awarded for staff photo portfolio.

-- Two silver medals for LA: The Los Angeles Times Magazine -- one for the Oscars issue cover and one for a cover illustration of Gustavo Dudamel.

-- A silver medal for coverage of Michael Jackson's death and funeral.

Other honors include awards of excellence for coverage of the 2009 Oscars, the inauguration of Barack Obama, the fall arts preview, the NBA Finals, the Station fire, the mortgage meltdown and Movie Sneaks, to name several.

"I think our success reflects how well rounded we are as a news organization," said Michael Whitley, assistant managing editor for design. "It’s not just about having a great design department or graphics department or photo staff. It's about great content told using all the tools available. Really well written, well edited stories are the cornerstone of what we do. Our reporters, editors and copy editors play a huge role in this. It's really about the complete package of how we tell stories, and that is what I think SND recognizes in our work."

In the Pictures of the Year International awards, the staff won four other first-place honors:

-- Portfolio, newspaper editing, for a large body of work.

-- Issue reporting, newspaper editing, for "The Rebels on the Mountain."

-- Issue reporting, multimedia, for "A Boy's Struggles" by Liz O. Baylen. Liz also won three other multimedia awards.

-- Issue reporting, picture story, newspaper, for "Frozen Land, Forgotten People" by Barbara Davidson. This magnificent piece of work also earned a Judges' Special Recognition citation.

"I am thrilled with the recognition from the Pictures of the Year International," said Deputy Managing Editor Colin Crawford. "Winning the Angus McDougall award and the other awards in photography, editing and multimedia is a true honor and a tribute to the talented visual journalists here at the L.A. Times."

--Deirdre Edgar

Twitter: @LATreadersrep

Rong-Gong Lin II’s recent Column One article about embracing family and cultural traditions after his grandmother’s death touched a chord with readers. A number of them contacted Lin, who goes by Ron, to share their own stories. He collected some of them here:

I have received more than 30 notes from readers, and I was heartened by the reaction.

Some Taiwanese American readers expressed gratitude, including those who weren’t able to travel to Taiwan for family funerals. But readers from other cultures and faiths also wrote to me. One lamented the loss of Central American traditions in his family. One woman said how the story inspired her to learn more from her 97-year-old nana and observe Jewish traditions — like making a matza ball — more closely.

A sampling of comments is below.

--Rong-Gong Lin II

===

Thank you for sharing a part of your life with The Times' readers. Your feelings for your grandmother, and your sense of loss on her death, resonated with me. You were open about how complicated it is to have a family member who is dictatorial and seems inflexible and demanding, and yet that profound sense of their absence, and an appreciation for what motivated them, when they're gone. Also, the cultural differences, the abyss created by a different place and time and experience, were beautifully described. I welled up reading it, and thinking about it after.

===

I wanted to take the time to tell you what a wonderful story you told about your grandmother and family. I am a second generation Hispanic from Central America. I have lost my old traditional roots and sometimes wonder why and how I lost my way. My children even more so. They don’t even speak Spanish.  Anyway, your story was very moving! Thank you for sharing that with all of us. I am sure that it touches and moves everyone in a different way.

===

Tradition and family -- I'm all about it! My nana is 97 and I value the time and recalling memories and stories before it’s too late. It puts everything, life,  into perspective. Thank you for sharing your honesty ... how we can lose our roots from being Americanized. It’s hard not to, but it’s so important to keep each of our cultures alive.  I come from a Jewish background but couldn't tell you how to make a matza ball or a Seder dinner. I guess this year I will be observing more closely and listening.

===

I'm a second generation Taiwanese American, and read your piece in the LA Times today.  Your grandma would be incredibly proud of the work you are doing, telling her story to millions across the country. Thanks for telling your story, and thank you to your editors for giving you space to let it be heard.

===

Thank you for writing about your family cultural experiences. It helps all of us to understand the world a little better that we live in. Bless you and your family.

Photo: As part of the funeral ritual, Rong-Gong Lin II washes away sadness over his grandmother's death. Credit: Alberto Buzzola / For The Times

The California page in Thursday's LATExtra section featured an article about a 77-year-old homeowner fighting to save his historic Spanish-style bungalow from foreclosure.

The article, by Ruben Vives, included these colorful details:

Sitting in his living room one recent afternoon, the proud homeowner looked around him. He eyed the home's white coved ceiling, nickel wall scones and stained-glass windows, then gazed upon the original oak wood flooring. It was installed the same year he was born.

That second sentence caught the eye of reader Beryl Arbit of Encino, who wrote:

"Spell check is not your friend.  If it were, it would stop you from printing that Jim Schneider has nickel scones on his wall (scones being biscuit-like pastries popular in Britain).  Rather, it would cause you to print that Mr. Schneider has sconces on his wall (sconces being wall-mounted lighting fixtures)."

To quote the subject line of Arbit’s e-mail: What a difference one letter makes.

Vives -- and editors -- do know the difference between a lighting fixture and a breakfast pastry. But that one pesky letter is easy to overlook when your brain knows what the word is supposed to be. And as Arbit points out, spell check doesn’t help in this case.

Vives poked fun at the typo too: "If Mr. Schneider did have scones and not sconces, wouldn’t that make the house sweeter and a better reason to save it?"

-- Deirdre Edgar

Twitter: @LATreadersrep

Photos: Maple oat pecan scones. Credit: Starbucks. Fireplace sconces. Credit: Sconcelights.net. 

Assistant Managing Editor Sallie Hoffmeister and Arts and Entertainment Editor Craig Turner have announced two additions to the arts and entertainment staff:

Randall Roberts has joined the arts and entertainment group as pop music editor, overseeing the popular Pop & Hiss blog and coverage of the fast-evolving recording industry, the vibrant local scene of bands and hit-makers, and national and international artists from country and jazz to hip-hop, pop and rock ‘n’ roll. Randall, who will start March 15, comes to us from LA Weekly, where, as music editor for the last three years, he established the paper as a rollicking authority on local music both online and in print through a freelance network as well as with his own blog posts, stories and columns. Randall moved to Los Angeles from St. Louis, where he spent nine years as music editor, then a staff writer and beat reporter at the city’s alternative weekly. A 2009 USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism fellow, Randall’s articles on music, history, food and cocktails have been honored by the Assn. of Food Journalists, the James Beard Foundation, the National Assn. of Black Journalists and the L.A. Press Club.

Jori Finkel will join the staff to cover art and architecture, beginning April 5. Jori is an experienced arts reporter who since 2005 has covered the Southern California art scene as a freelancer for the New York Times and as contributing editor for Art + Auction magazine, where she previously worked as senior editor in New York. She has taught at Stanford University and the Otis College of Art and Design, and she has lectured at art fairs and museums on topics ranging from Dada and Surrealism to the contemporary art market. In her new assignment, she will illuminate the Los Angeles art scene, which is among the most dynamic and closely watched in the world, and keep readers updated on national and international art trends. In addition, Jori will cover the politics, personalities and economics of museums and galleries.

The Times frequently hears from readers asking why the Sports department doesn’t cover a particular sport, team or event.

These are among the recent inquiries:

From Terri Taylor of Westminster: "I am writing to express my disappointment that the Times does not provide results or even mention ‘smaller’ sports when providing coverage in its Sports page.  I am specifically talking about swimming.  This weekend is men's PAC-10 swimming and last weekend was PAC-10 women's swimming competition, both held locally at the Belmont Plaza pool in Long Beach.  You never even mentioned this at all.  You don't even have a category online that includes swimming."

From Georges Francoeur of Gilbert, Ariz.: "For the last two weeks I've been looking in your online paper for information on the UCLA Women Basketball Team.  All I got is a big NOTHING! All the coverage is on the men's side of the house. From what I know, the team is having an excellent year, and the L.A. Times has devoted nobody to cover and detail the wonderful year the team is having."

From Marilyn Lusk of Irvine: "I have been a subscriber to the LA Times for over 30 years. I am shocked at the poor coverage of college basketball. Here we are in March and there is practically nothing about teams other than UCLA and USC … sometimes Gonzaga. L.A. is full of people from the East and Midwest. People who are college basketball fans want to know about the best teams, regardless of their locations."

The Sports department, like all the others in the newsroom, has undergone painful reductions in recent years. Sports Editor Mike James addressed those cutbacks, and the difficult coverage decisions that result, in this response:

Because our staff, space in the paper and resources are so much smaller than they used to be, we simply can no longer cover everything the way we once did. Consequently, we have to make the difficult decisions every day on what events and sports we do cover and those that we can’t. Our decision has been to try to make sure we reach the greatest number of readers we can with resources available, and regrettably, that means that some areas don’t get much regular coverage.  So our energies are more focused toward the beats with high readership, such as the Lakers, Dodgers, USC and UCLA, the NFL and the Olympics. In addition, whenever we uncover exceptional stories at any level in whatever sport, we’ll go after those stories because the subject matter will apply to a broad spectrum of readers.

Would I like to be able to cover the many colleges and universities in the area comprehensively? Of course. I’d love to be able to have a much greater presence on high school sports as well -- we have more than 600 schools in our readership area. But that takes a substantial staff that we just don’t have now. And it takes a great deal of room in a shrinking Sports section.

True, we haven’t been covering a lot of women’s basketball this season, aside from a couple of features, largely because women’s basketball hasn’t been a major draw in L.A. Now that we’re in the Pac-10 tournament, though, we are covering that with a staff writer, and should one of our teams advance, we’ll cover that team in the NCAA tournament as well.

The Loyola Marymount men’s basketball team had a decent season, after its abysmal record a year ago, and had a couple of upsets late in the season. The Lions nearly made it to the conference tournament final, a game that we would have covered in Las Vegas had they won their semifinal game. And had they done that and advanced to the NCAA tournament, we would have covered them as long as they were alive. Of course, had we known that LMU was going to upset heavily favored Gonzaga late in the season, we would have covered that game. But alas, we can’t predict upsets like that and can’t afford  to cover every game with the chance that an upset might occur.

In any event, we’re trying to cover events that mean the most to the most readers. It’s a balancing act every day. I won’t say all our choices are always correct, but I’ll say that they are all made after careful consideration.

--Deirdre Edgar

Twitter: @LATreadersrep

A careful reader of The Times has called out the staff on a couple of recent occasions over use of language involving homosexuality.

An editorial Wednesday criticizing the anti-gay voting record of state Sen. Roy Ashburn said that Ashburn "confessed that he is gay" during an interview with a right-wing radio station.

In response to the editorial, reader Paul Grein wrote:

"I can't believe that The Times' style guide, in 2010, doesn't say that its writers should use neutral terms like 'discloses' or 'reveals' rather than inherently negative terms like 'confesses' or 'admits' when talking about someone's sexual orientation."

In fact the style guide does address this type of usage. The entry reads:

Avoid the words "acknowledged," "admitted" and "avowed" unless they are appropriate to the context, as when a person in the military is accused of being gay and admits or acknowledges that it is so. In other contexts, write openly gay or gay.

Nicholas Goldberg, editor of the editorial pages, explained the thinking behind the wording:

"I don’t think we meant the word 'confessed' to suggest that he had been doing something we considered wrong. We meant 'confessed' in the sense that he had denied and denied and denied something for years that he didn’t want people to know, and then he finally came out and admitted it. In that sense it was a classic confession, which the dictionary defines as ‘to acknowledge or disclose something damaging or inconvenient to oneself.'

"However, I see your point and, frankly, if it had been mentioned to me before deadline, I would've been happy to change it."

A separate usage question came up in an article Feb. 24 about the military’s "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy. That article described the policy as one that "allows gays to serve only as long as they keep their preferences hidden."

Grein had weighed in on this as well:

"Most people nowadays use the phrase 'sexual orientation' not 'sexual preferences' (and are they plural?) 'Preferences' suggests a mere 'preference' for one gender over the other. In most cases, with heterosexuals as well as gays and lesbians, it's more than just a preference."

The Times style guide gives similar counsel:

The term sexual orientation is preferred to sexual preference, sexual persuasion or other such terms.

The stylebook of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Assn. has even stronger language regarding "sexual preference":

Avoid. Politically charged term implying that sexuality is the result of a conscious choice.

I confess, I agree with Grein on both counts. The style guide does, too. 

--Deirdre Edgar

Twitter: @LATreadersrep

Many readers were surprised to open their Friday paper and see what appeared to be a movie ad obscuring the front page. In actuality, a four-page advertising section for the movie “Alice in Wonderland” was wrapped around the paper, with a front page designed to look like the real Los Angeles Times, nameplate and all.

The page was marked “Advertisement” in the spot where the date would normally appear. But two articles on either side of a large photo of Johnny Depp used fonts similar to The Times’, and they appeared to be about Afghanistan and healthcare -- two news subjects that are often front-page articles.

As of Friday evening, The Times’ newsroom had received nearly 100 e-mails and about 75 calls from readers regarding the ad, the majority of them unhappy about it. The circulation department had received 101 calls.

Some readers tried to read what looked like legitimate news articles and were frustrated to find them blocked by the ad and not continuing later in the paper:

C. Richard Ryan wrote: WOW Today's front page is sickening to me. ESPECIALLY bad is the fact that one CAN'T EVEN READ ALL THE WORDS in the headlines of the REAL NEWS. "Major Afghan WHAT Caught?" I am furious about this.

From William Inhelder: I cannot believe that The Times would deliberately put that Mad Hatter advertisement on the front page on the main section making most of the front page non-readable. If it was intended , it has to be the most bone-headed decision ever foisted upon its readers in my 50 years as a Times subscriber. If it was unintended, then there is no excuse for delivering such a bad copy.

From Bella Villeza of Los Angeles: You must have gotten a fortune advertising "Alice in Wonderland".  The whole front page is spoiled;  the advertisement covering several paragraphs of two important news items:  "To Take Reins on Health Proposal" and "Major Afghan...ure Caught".  I'm very disappointed that you put "money" before "news."

Other readers recognized that the section was an advertisement but were unhappy with its content:

William Anawalt of Pasadena wrote: It makes sense that the goal of an advertisement is to grab attention, but it makes no sense whatsoever that a business would undermine its integrity by usurping its core. Creating a false "front page" to wrap around the important work that the journalists and editors of the Los Times Times dedicate their lives to denigrates the mission and purpose of our city's newspaper. I give up.  After 30 years of receiving the L.A. Times, today I called to cancel my subscription. I give up.  

And from Jim Hergenrather of Los Angeles: The use of a legitimate image of the front page of The Times as the background for a movie ad is an insult to journalism. It derides the value of news and simply suggests you have adopted the position that a newspaper's editorial content is now nothing more than a vehicle for marketing. The insult is compounded by the actual front page behind it carrying a story about reality TV shows crossing ethical boundaries. 

The subject of the ad inspired some “Alice in Wonderland”- themed comments:

From Joan Martin of Woodland Hills: Alice: But I don't want to go among mad people. The Cat: Oh, you can't help that. We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad. The L.A. Times is mad.

From Kate Nelson of Manhattan Beach: I've gradually gotten used to the brutal cuts at the sadly declining Times, but this front-page movie ad says it all: You've fallen down the rabbit hole. 

And Ryan Krebs of Moorpark wrote: In a world of double-digit unemployment, recession, and dysfunctional state government, the "Mad Hatter" gets on the front page. How appropriate!

The ad did have its fans, however:

Richard Vallens of Irvine wrote: The Alice in Wonderland (false) front page is absolutely, positively the cleverest idea EVER. It totally tricked me, in the most delightful way. Brilliantly executed. Brilliantly! I'll bet there was a lot of discussion at The Times about allowing that -- a full-page, front-page ad. Here's the verdict: It would ONLY be proper and allowable in narrow circumstances and only if executed elegantly. IT WORKED! 

And from Pete Howard of San Luis Obispo: Wow. Groundbreaking, and really faked me out. Cool. Sell one every day, and be prosperous. That's what this reader of 40 years says. Do what you have to do; having fun doing it, like this one, is a bonus.

-- Deirdre Edgar

Twitter: @LATreadersrep