PUBLIC FORUM : GOTTA LOVE IT.

I love it. Hollywood is now the standard-bearer for morality. First Sharon Stone turns in her firearms and calls for all of us to do the same. This will certainly stop violence with firearms. Then it's Spike Lee, joking (ostensibly) that someone ought to shoot Charlton Heston with a .44-caliber Bulldog. What a great idea to decrease the murder rate!

Now the ``repeal the Second Amendment'' crowd chimes in. Rosie O'Donnell and Mia Farrow both are now stating that the ``right of the people to keep and bear arms'' is no longer valid; only the police and the military should be allowed to have guns. What constitutional brilliance!

I wonder what the outrage would be like if Charlton Heston suggested that the First Amendment be repealed in order that Sharon, Spike, Rosie and Mia could have their respective mouths taped shut?

If Hollywood is truly interested in decreasing violence with firearms, perhaps they should do their part and stop making so many violent films.

- Steve McCombs

Chatsworth

We won, I guess

It's hard for me to comprehend that tiny Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic, who has Adolf Hitler's mentality and has persecuted and ethnically cleansed half of his country's citizens, should be rewarded with a compromise settlement in his fight against 19 moral, powerful countries. We are now about to get another Saddam Hussein who reveled in victory after he was defeated in the Gulf War.

After spending tens of billions of dollars destroying Yugoslavia, are we really going to spend tens of billions of dollars rebuilding Yugoslavia if their people will vote Milosevic out of office? Why can't we just kill this murderer and let the Serbian people, who approved of and encouraged Milosevic's ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina, work their way out of their Stone Age environment?

Now, after all this destruction, we're sending the ethnic Albanians back to live with and under the Serb majority, and we'll police them forever. What has this noble war accomplished? We were going to stop the killing, raping, looting, burning and ethnic cleansing of the ethnic Albanian Kosovars. Did we? No!

- Robert A. Felburg

Costa Mesa 

Don't prosecute teacher

Here we go again - let's prosecute teacher Diana Duncan. She struck or pushed a 10-year-old student who she believed had struck another student. A teacher who has spent 4-6 years getting ready to teach; an honorable position so abused by us. Isn't it time that parents got a little involved in teaching their children respect for their teachers, police and others that are dedicated to society's good?

When I was a student, if I came home and told my parents that the teacher had struck my knuckles for a violation, I would get another crack for causing a disturbance to the teacher and the class.

Diana, you deserve praise, not persecution.

- Cam Galieti

Northridge

Education, not agendas

Re ``Charter school hits snag (Daily News, May 28): So the school board members were unaware that the building chosen for a new charter school also housed a mental health center for the treatment of mentally ill patients. They were also unaware that near the school site was a drug and alcohol treatment center.

They ``don't think'' the center treats sex offenders, but they are not sure. These board members also are the ``very concerned'' people who approved the toxic waste Belmont Learning Center, still have not air-conditioned San Fernando Valley year-round schools and are months behind on construction of two new schools in the Valley.

Haven't we all had enough of their waste, lack of decent facilities for our children and the totally unprofessional way the district is run? It's time to break up the unwieldly district into at least four manageable districts and to elect all new board members who are concerned with education, not their own political agendas.

- Les Parker

Woodland Hills

Enlist the NRA 

I'm often critical of the views expressed in your newspaper, especially those of some of your contributing editorial writers. So it was a pleasant surprise to read the Letters on June 6. Obviously the public - if your forum is any gauge - is more in tune than the literati.

One aspect of gun control which has always baffled me is that if the goal is help reduce crime, why hasn't the gun control lobby enlisted the help of the National Rifle Association rather than attempting to depict it as a group of homicidal maniacs with assault weapons? Let's face it, the NRA has more practical knowledge about guns than anyone except the military and the police . How stupid to wage war on one of the best resources available. Unless of course the agenda is control rather than reduction of crime.

- M.C. Savell

Simi Valley 

Ironic and wrong

Shame on the Daily News for passing off misinformation as fact and then using that misinformation to push its Valley Succession (sic) agenda. Contrary to what you would have your readers believe, stealing city property is not legal

Never has been. Never will be.

The facts of the case in question are simple and straightforward. Two LAPD employees were accused of theft. They appealed their discharge, as is there (sic) right. A hearing was held before a neutral third party, who issued his decision exonerating the employees. Simply put, the LAPD did not prove its case. Having failed to do so, the civil service commission members - all of whom are appointed by the Mayor Richard Riordan - could not in good conscience uphold the firings. It is truly ironic that the Daily News would characterize the mayor's hand-picked commissioners as being part of a ``union-rigged Civil Service Commission.'' How quickly the Daily News has forgotten that the unions and the mayor have had what can best be described as a stormy relationship.

The Daily News, in both its news coverage (``L.A.'s dirty laundry,'' May 27) and its editorial (``Legalized stealing,'' May 28) conveniently ignored these facts. Instead it acted as though these employees had been found guilty, when in fact they had not. Adding insult to this egregious action, the Daily News then proceeded to brand all city employees as lazy, overpaid workers who are somehow all prone to stealing. This is an outrage!

Clearly, this characterization is made not to provide your readers with facts and information that they can use to make intelligent decisions about critical issues of our time, but rather it is made to realize its not so hidden agenda of fomenting Valley Succession (sic).

- Julie Butcher

General Manager, Local 347

Service Employees International Union

O.J.'s innocent

Count me among the few who will never believe O.J. did it. I am saddened that an innocent and good man suffered this way. He's just a nice guy. I know you don't want to give a man whom you see as a killer an even break and consider those of us who don't see things the way you see things to be outright fools. Well, don't quote me on anything else, because you are quoting a fool.

- Rikio Matsunami

Los Angeles 

Ethnic pride

I would like to respond to Paul Nolan's well-written letter (Public Forum, June 9) about my earlier letter. Nolan understands how important it is to defend our ethnic pride. However, are you sure that all Spanish last names are Chicanos (Mexican-Americans)? Look at my last name, Corletto. It looks Italian. In your article, you call my group Latin. Some Mexican-Americans have English last names. Why? Their fathers were Americans.

During the Mexican-American War, your ethnic countrymen participated in the war. At first, a regiment of the Irish were fighting on the American side. After watching the attacks on civilian populations, the Irish changed sides.

You asked why I used the novel ``Animal Farm.'' The novel expresses my feeling about how my community is being jerked around. Whatever my community does gets questioned. Our youth are harassed by the LAPD. Would you allow the LAPD to conduct a gang quarantine in your home community if you knew that your children only dress in baggy pants and white shirts? My community is the first to get kicked off land in order to create a baseball stadium, prisons and freeways. We didn't get major representation in government until this decade. How is our society different from the message in the novel?

- Ramiro Corletto

North Hollywood

Up, not over

Instead of the LAUSD's purchasing new property, thereby forcing people to relocate, I wonder if it has considered building two-story buildings on existing properties.

- Terri Andrews

Castaic

Will of the people

Re ``Just vote'' (Editorial, June 6):

The first paragraph states ``Fight against your apathy and anger, roust up your family and friends, get out and vote Tuesday and send City Hall a message.'' You also indicated that voters are so fed up that there is a high probability that people will not vote at all. The disrespect of government officials has been in existence for a long time.

My point is that the expressed majority of votes are ignored, as was the case in Proposition 187. All the losing opposition has to wait for is to find a judge with the same mind-set as the losers. You can talk and print all you want about people voting in any major election. History shows that the general public's vote is ignored by a single person, called a judge, who overturns the will of the people.

- Fred Reitz

Agoura

'60s ruined us

Lawsuits against firearm manufacturers are just another tool that the liberal mayors and other politicians are using to ban guns. They continue to place the majority of society's ills on inanimate objects, guns, because they refuse to believe that their liberal ideas and social programs have not made things better but worse.

Our laws in this country are based upon religious Judeo-Christian laws and philosophies, and they guided this nation well until the '60s liberals decided they didn't like being told what was right and wrong. They have run religion and the Ten Commandments out of school, and everyday life for that matter, and have replaced it with children's rights that have teachers afraid of lawsuits from failed parents if they say anything negative to the kid.

- Earl R. Burch

Santa Clarita