PUBLIC FORUM : U.S. `PROSPERITY' REALLY IS ENRICHING OTHERS.

Can we really believe that our economy is going great, as per published articles in the paper?

I suspect these so-called authoritative business writers are most probably under the wings of the multinational corporations and importers. I believe the seeming prosperity going on in our country today is being financed by the American people's own sweat and blood money.

But just for how long can we, the American people, support where this so-called prosperity is going? Unfortunately, our money pockets are not bottomless. Actually, we are sending our money to Japan, China and elsewhere. Our trade deficit keeps on swelling.

The amount of our accumulated trade deficits, I presume, would be staggering to imagine. I also presume that our big corporations that manufacture products in foreign countries, as well as our importers, are the ones really enjoying the so-called economic prosperity, not the American working people in general, because much more money is going out of our country than coming in.

Our beloved nation is now acting like a Third World country. We import almost everything we need for our daily use.

I suspect most of our lawmakers and government in general are more protective of the importers than of our homegrown laborers employed by manufacturers who produce their products in the United States. It probably is because the importers have more money at their disposal to spend for lobbying the White House and Congress. As a result, we, the American people, are making ourselves the loser.

- Benjamin A. Resella

Valencia

Pilgrims and socialism

Julia Vitullo-Martin's ``Setting an American table'' (Opinions, Nov. 27) was an interesting, but incomplete, review of Thanksgiving American-style.

The biggest factor in the harsh experience of the pilgrims in their first seasons in the unforgiving Northeast was not ignorance of basic agriculture. It was their experiment in socialism.

In organizing the pilgrims, a document called the Mayflower Compact called for all goods to be held in common. Private property and its incentives were barred to ensure an equal outcome in the distribution of necessities.

William Bedford, pilgrim leader and drafter of the Mayflower Compact, wrote later of the experiment: ``This community was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense; . . . that was thought injustice.''

While there can be no doubt that the Indians helped introduce the settlers to local produce and wildlife resources, it would not be unreasonable in our own time to take the occasion to thank God for giving the pilgrims the wisdom to scrap socialism in favor of the protection of private property and the rewarding of individual initiative. Just look how they - and we - have prospered ever since.

- Pat Parker

Los Angeles 

FLIGHT 800 crash

Re what really happened to TWA Flight 800:

The theory that a spark from a mechanical malfunction in the main fuel tank caused the crash doesn't hold water, because the fuel in that tank would be just as hard to ignite.

Airlines use what is called high-flash point fuel. This is to prevent explosions on the ground. The flash point of a fuel is the temperature at which that fuel produces a combustible vapor. The flash point of this fuel is well over 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

The only way a spark could have ignited that fuel is if the fuel in the tank was at or above its flash point. This is never the case. In some cases the fuel has to be preheated to get it to burn.

This is what I believe happened: As the aircraft was climbing, with engines at full power, the aircraft experienced structural failure, beginning in the lower part of the fuselage just in front of the wing next to the main fuel tank. This area is not pressurized.

A piece of the fuselage gave way and ruptured the main fuel tank, dumping fuel out the side of the aircraft. As the fuel dispersed at the rear of the aircraft, it was ignited by the hot exhaust from the inboard engine.

This produced a large flame a short distance behind the aircraft. As the structure continued to rupture into the pressurized portion of the aircraft, the resulting explosive decompression blew the nose section off and produced a shock wave that carried the sound more than 10 miles.

The separation further ruptured the main fuel tank, dumping and dispersing fuel into the main cabin, where it was ignited by massive electrical shorts caused by separation. The rest of the fuel began to burn, and the rest of the story you know.

They need to look at the structure of these aircraft, not the mechanics.

- Ed Buck

North Hills

Valley lion sightings

These are additional letters on Saturday's Public Forum topic - living with cougars.

The mountain lion population has ballooned, through overbreeding and lack of control, to the point where these beautiful but vicious predators are forced to come into populated areas to hunt and kill or face starvation.

A mature mountain lion has to kill an average of two animals a week to stay alive and healthy. If deer and big-horned sheep are not available, mountain lions must kill enough small mammals and birds to make up for lack of the larger animals.

If nothing is done to control these perfect killing machines, the day is coming when man will be forced to eliminate them. This, of course, will not happen until enough people have been attacked and killed.

When these attacks occur - and they will - I hope that the victims are the people who voted us into this ridiculous situation. I hope the victims are the same people who believe the mountain lion has as much right to be here as we humans do.

Perhaps then this group's priorities will become realistic, no longer motivated by unwarranted emotionalism that rides roughshod over obvious practicality.

- Frank G. Carlisi

Calabasas

Eventually a mountain lion is going to drag off and eat a small child. Only then will the voters rise up and insist on a realistic law to control these big cats. Sadly, this is the way our political system sometimes works.

- Jeff Hibbard

Agua Dulce 

We, as residents in the suburban areas, should learn to co-exist and accept the presence of mountain lions. I believe that it's never a good thing when man tries to interfere, in most ways, with nature.

When attempts are made to manage or control wild animal species, it seems that more problems than benefits occur in the natural ecosystem. Let nature alone. There's is not much left.

- Laurie Stein

Tarzana

Mountain lions are less of a threat to the public than pontificating, mendacious, self-serving state senators, especially those - hunters themselves - who are dependent on their campaign contributions from wealthy hunting organizations, such as the Safari Club.

If the deer population is disappearing across this great wilderness, it is because of one predator and one alone: man. When state Sen. Tim Leslie, R-Roseville, decides to rewrite history, he'd better confer with his hunter cronies whose argument for killing deer has always been that there supposedly are more deer across the country now than there were 100 years ago because of hunters' management efforts.

If that's so, then why the frantic rush to kill off the mountain lion?

- Michael Bell 

Director

Animal Legislative Action Network

Los Angeles

We're told: Don't hurt the poor lions. Have an umbrella handy and keep children and pets indoors.

Do we have to sacrifice a child before we change the law and cull the predator population? Bring back hunting, and permit anyone to shoot any predator seen anywhere within the city limits.

Even Homo sapiens neanderthalensis had the brains to protect his family. How much longer do we have to accede to the dangerously naive ``pretty pussycat'' crowd?

- William O. Felsman

Woodland Hills

Re the Daily News editorial calling for new mountain lion laws (``Now they're Valley lions; a flawed initiative needlessly puts residents at risk,'' Nov. 23).

The California Wildlife Protection Act, adopted as Proposition 117, states that mountain lions may be taken if there is ``a perceived imminent threat to public health and safety.'' So the issue of public safety is already covered by law and needs no amendment.

Once again, we can only conclude that what you really want to do is allow a bunch of radio-collared dogs to pursue a mountain lion relentlessly until, exhausted, it takes refuge in a tree where a so-called hunter then strolls in to blast it point-blank off the branch.

This has been illegal for more than 20 years since then-Gov. Ronald Reagan signed the moratorium on lion hunting. In this decade, the voters have spoken twice on this issue. We are beginning to wonder what part of no you don't understand.

- Lynn Sadler

Executive director

Mountain Lion Foundation

Sacramento

Re your editorial:

The problem is not too many cats but too many people.

And your transparent suggestion that perhaps it is because of increased competition for deer, etc., that hungry lions are turning an eye toward humans is the same mean, worn-out canard that hunters drag out every year - or whenever they're in a rut and looking for an excuse to kill a big cat.

The bumblebee kills more people in a year than the mountain lion has knocked off in the whole history of this republic. Trouble is, these hunters have big guns, and killing the bumblebee isn't noisy enough.

- Susan Robin

Agoura