Max Weisberg

America used to celebrate Runyon-esque characters lik7). Always for the underdog, we rooted for the misfits and oddballs, the sharpies and hustlers who could not live within the system and yet by their wits managed to survive and even profit from it. Max Weisberg is self-supporting, is harming no one and apparently enjoys his life; yet it is possible that he will be institutionalized at public expense and robbed of what remains of his life, just as he is now repeatedly robbed of his money by the “authorities.”

Now, thanks to schools, lawyers, psychologists and the corporate state, anyone who doesn’t look, think and behave like the ideal citizen is labeled “dysfunctional” and is subject to the uninvited intervention of Big Brother. It’s a brave new world indeed.

AL SMITH

Redondo Beach

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* Why didn’t the article come right out and say that the city, state and feds either have a nice, readily accessible savings account or a legal shakedown scheme?

DAN McCARTHY

Torrance