PUBLIC FORUM : IT'S EMBARRASSING.

After reading your article ``Students help clean up middle school'' I am both embarrassed and outraged.

While I applaud the staff, students, parents and local administrators for their hard work and initiative to clean up the school, as a citizen of the city of Los Angeles, I am very embarrassed that the children in our schools have to do the cleaning themselves if they want a clean school, and as a taxpayer, I am outraged that the state and federal taxes I pay to give the students a clean environment to study in are not being used for the purpose for which they are collected.

Where were the LAUSD board members during this cleanup? Where were the downtown district administrators? These are the people who constantly tell us that the children are their No. 1 priority. Remember?

This is no different than my employer requiring its employees to clean up around the company on their own time if they want a clean place to work in. And don't tell me that it's different because my employer is a for-profit enterprise and that the LAUSD is not.

The only people who don't profit in the LAUSD are the students and the taxpayers.

- Terry L. Long

North Hills

A day's pay

In your Daily News Watch of Nov. 21, your paper gives a down arrow to the City Council for giving LAPD officers their $40 million overtime pay from the 1992 riots.

Shame on you. These brave officers put their lives on the line doing their job . . . ``To protect and to serve.'' The city has dragged its feet long enough. These officers should get paid a day's wage for a day's work.

- Jim Polzer

Newhall

Modern slavery

The wealthy make sure that their incomes are adjusted upward well above the rate of inflation, while at the same time denying that privilege to the low wage workers who make their standards of living possible. Minimum wage should have been tied to the U.S. Consumer Price Index 20 years ago or at least to congressional pay raises. Thanks to inflation, minimum wage has become nothing less than economic slavery.

The main difference between modern-day slavery and the pre-Civil War slavery is the minimum wage earners get to choose their slave drivers (employers) and owners (landlords). The ability to move at will from owner to owner and driver to driver does not mean they're not slaves. On a subsistence wage they cannot afford to be without a driver for even one day.

Like their predecessors the system is set up with little or no chance for escape. Very few will ever rise to the level of working boss (management). Education, the underground railway of the new millennium is placed well out of their reach by the dysfunctional public education system. So they are condemned to a life of servitude. God help them all.

- Don Katona

Northridge

No one cares

Re ``Obscene salary'' (Public Forum, Nov. 21): Yes, we have forgotten! It is that very fact that professional sports counts on from the fans. If the fans would really care about how out of line the whole salary structure is concerning professional sports they would stay home and not patronize it.

The public does not give a damn about what is right or wrong. They are too complacent and lazy. No guts, no morals, no true fair values. Until we change our values, then nothing will be fair or right. Until we change our priorities, then the ballplayer will always make more money than the school teachers, who without them, we would be stupid idiots. When we give more to sports than we do to schools, teachers, doctors, nurses, hospitals, and Social Security, then we will never solve the problem of how unfair everything is.

- John Piccola

Sylmar

The bug

Re ``Not the new millennium'' (Public Forum, Nov. 2): I agree with the writer's arithmetic (2000 vs. 2001 as signaling a new millennium), and am reminded of another discrepancy in discussions about Y2K (Dec. 31 1999). The possible source of disruption is not due to our advancing from 1999 to 2000; it is instead due to ``advancing'' from 99 to 00.

If such brilliant pioneers as Blaise Pascal, Leibnitz and Charles Babbage (in the 19th century) had the power of today's technology, the ``crisis'' could have arisen much earlier. Besides concern now about the Y2K (a k a the MM) bug, earlier generations would have worried about the MCM bug on Dec. 31, 1899. Both bugs (1899 and 1999) could be referred to as potential ``YC'' problems.

- Ruth Horgan

Northridge

Lend a hand

Re ``Stray cat problem'' (Public Forum, Oct. 31):

I am also a resident of Northridge Mobile Park (27 years). For most of that time, along with a friend, we have spent our own time and money doing our best to find homes for the kittens and also trapping the feral adult cats to be spayed and neutered, rather than have them taken to the animal shelter to be destroyed. No, we can't do it all, but if some of the folks here that complain would kick in and help somehow, maybe we could get this place under control in a humane way.

I would also like to point out that there are some irresponsible folks in this park that walk their dogs and do not pick up after them. That smells too, don't totally blame the cats.

- Dan Francis

Northridge

New food rating

The nutrition facts that the FDA requires on most food items these days is a good idea, but it is not quite what we are looking for. Sure it's good to know how many calories per serving or how many grams of fat but it doesn't get to the root of the matter. The root of the matter is death. Yes that thing that hangs over all of us but makes poor dinner conversation. We all want to know what is in the food we eat for one reason and one reason only. Is it bad for me and how bad is it? To that end we should be provided with one number that sums it all up. The most relevant number I can think of is how many days will this take off the end of my life' or ``LRF'' (Life Reduction Factor).

For example, a prepackaged cheesecake topped with cherries in a thick glaze may have a LRF of 4 for the four days at the end of your life you would have enjoyed had you not eaten it. A TV dinner of fried chicken with gravy and mashed potatoes might have an LRF of 20 for the 20 sunrises you'll miss for the pleasure of home style cooking.

Some foods are good for you, you say? Fair enough. A-plus (+) or a minus (-) attached to the LRF would solve this problem.

- Michael Cole

Agoura

Hating downtown

Gideon Kanner's hate diatribe against downtown L.A., ``Downtown L.A. is an Urban Myth'' (Viewpoint, Nov. 21) focuses on the same old debates regarding high-ticket items and ignores what's really going on.

Downtown does not need to be ``saved'' by a middle class that has long since fled to suburban malls. It remains a potent work and cultural center that has more architectural treasures, history, and heart than anywhere else in the city. Today it is more walkable and pedestrian friendly than ever before. The return of Angel's Flight and the construction of the Bunker Hill Steps have helped heal the old Bunker Hill fortress mentality crimes of the 1960s. The Central Library has never been busier or looked better and thousands of commuters stream daily through the still gorgeous and no longer abandoned Union Station.

Ultimately, downtown is a place that you either get it or you don't. It's definitely not for everybody. Fine. But why such hysterical bashing?

- Roger Christensen

Sherman Oaks

Tip of the iceberg 

While browser software is the focus of the Justice Department's case against Microsoft, the effects of Microsoft's competitive practices are more widely felt.

Microsoft has used its dominance of the desktop to prevent the delivery of innovations that enhance competition between software providers. Because of long-standing problems with the delivery and maintenance of business software, the 1980s saw the development of software standards whose mission was to ensure that software from different vendors would work well together. The ultimate goal was to allow customers to ``assemble'' applications from parts provided by different vendors.

Microsoft has long flouted these standards. It has used its operating system to prevent competitors from deploying standards-based solutions in key application areas. This has allowed it to crush the competition in software applications, such as word processing, and to gain advantage in other areas, such as databases and Internet servers.

The Justice Department complaint is that the monopoly has been used to unfairly target and harm competitors in software applications. Your readers should be aware that the Netscape case is only the tip of the iceberg.

- Brian Balke

Agoura Hills

Here's an answer

Re ``Here's the questions'' (Public Forum, Nov. 4):

Apparently discourse on gun control, or should I say more correctly, gun prohibition, has taken yet another downturn as evidenced by the snotty, smarty-pants tone of the writer.

There is no number carved in stone of the amount of future victims of crimes yet to be committed, nor will the prevention the writer alludes to: no guns, except of course, those retained by the military, paramilitary police organizations, and murderers, robbers, and rapists, etc., will prevent violent crimes yielding a high body count. As long as the current tag team of cowards infesting Washington are calling the shots, there may soon be no good guys left to shoot back at the bad ones. Taking responsibility for the defense of your own life, regardless of the locale, is a viable, real-life solution, not immersing yourself in sarcastic rhetoric.

- Daniel Taylor

Tujunga

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Photo

Photo: Many hands pitched in for a day of campus beautification at Olive Vista Middle School.

Phil McCarten/Staff Photographer