PUBLIC FORUM AMERICAN NIGHTMARE.

Re ``LAUSD displacing families ... to build schools'' (Oct. 7):

An agency can walk in and take away someone's home - totally disrupting lives - and it's OK? How sad. This doesn't sound like the America I once knew when you came here for the American dream of owning your own home.

If Los Angeles Unified School District officials waited just a few more weeks, they could kick everyone out on Christmas Eve and really make an impression on people.

- Marilyn Dalrymple

Lancaster

Victimhood

Re ``$28 billion to smoker'' (Oct. 5):

Don't be so quick to hail Betty Bullock's award of $28 billion, which she won't live to see a nickel of; I hope it's in her will that the eventual award, after all the appeals are exhausted, is to be shared among any who became ill because of her secondhand smoke as a ``victory'' over the big bad tobacco industry. Actually, the tobacco industry benefits in the long run.

Such a triumph of victimhood over personal responsibility does not send the message ``Don't smoke; you'll get sick'' but rather ``Smoke and get rich.''

- Kevin Dawson

Sunland

Bad judgment

Re ``$28 billion to smoker'' (Oct. 5):

The $28 billion jury award is ludicrous. Who put that first cigarette in her mouth? She did. Who kept on smoking years later when the warnings came out about cigarette smoking? She did.

So I am sorry, but she does not deserve $28 billion. I hope that Philip Morris wins an appeal against this judgment. When are we as adults going to take responsibility for our actions instead of finding someone else or something else to hold responsible?

- Patricia Meiner

West Hills

Yaroslavsky responds

I take issue with the Daily News editorial ``Cover-up or cleanup?'' (Oct. 3), which was an entirely unwarranted attack on the integrity and professionalism of retired City Administrative Officer Keith Comrie, who has been engaged to oversee reform of the Entertainment Industry Development Corporation.

The EIDC executive committee unanimously approved my proposal to hire Comrie because he is universally recognized as one of the most capable and conscientious public officials ever to have served the city and the county of Los Angeles. His honesty is beyond question, and generations of elected officials like myself who served with him knew that we could always count on his dedication and competence for whatever administrative action or policy advice we required.

To offer only one example: When we discovered several years ago that there were substantial financial irregularities in the administration of the Southern California Association of Governments, we brought Comrie in to straighten it out and clean it up. I have perfect confidence that he will do the same at the EIDC, and restore that agency to the level of efficiency, effectiveness and accountability that the public, and our entertainment industry, demands and deserves.

- Zev Yaroslavsky 

Los Angeles County supervisor

EIDC board and executive committee member

Homeowners paying

Re ``LAUSD displacing families ... to build schools'' (Oct. 7):

It is an absolute travesty that families are being evicted from their homes by the Los Angeles Unified School District under the power of eminent domain. This is nothing more than a taking by an out-of-control government.

The root cause of this is the overwhelming burden placed on the public infrastructure by illegal immigration. There are simply too many illegal immigrants pouring into California. Government has not done its job to stop this flow, and now home-owning taxpayers are paying by being shoved into the streets.

- John N. Engels

Northridge

Attaboy, Angels

I want to congratulate Mike Scioscia and the Anaheim Angels for winning the playoffs. It is to Scioscia's credit - which he will never admit - that the Angels are going forward. I remember when he was the catcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Whenever he played and the team won, he never took credit for it, but praised each and every teammate. No one ever put his life on the line as Mike did when covering home plate.

I was devastated when the Dodgers did not hire Mike Scioscia as their manager. But from the day the Angels brought him aboard, I have been an Angels supporter. Here's hoping the Angels go all the way.

- Joel F. Pawlowski

Van Nuys

Not about what's right

Re ``Bush makes case for attacking Iraq'' (Oct. 8):

Why are we insisting that Iraq's nuclear program is illegal and gives us the right to invade and disarm when Israel did the same thing (illegally) back in the 1980s? The very existence of Israel's nuclear stockpile was never acknowledged officially.

This is because an open admission by the United States of the existence of the Israeli nuclear program would raise the question of invoking the Symington Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act. This amendment forbids extension of U.S. military aid to countries illicitly acquiring nuclear weapons. This is not about what's right; it is about invoking our will.

- Vatch Arouchian

Reseda

Bush goofed

Had President Bush gone to the United Nations Security Council and presented his case against Iraq before he started boasting that America would go it alone, I'm sure we would have had a pretty good coalition of countries ready to help bring down Saddam Hussein. Now that those in other countries know that America will go it alone if necessary, of course many will find all kinds of excuses not to join the coalition.

Why should they send their people to get killed when America will do it? They all know that Saddam Hussein is a real threat to the world, and they all know he has to go, but saying he is no threat is a good excuse to save a lot of lives in their own countries and let Americans get killed instead. I think our president goofed.

- Stan Niedwicki

Woodland Hills

Almost laughable

The Republicans should be given a serialized strip in the comic section. First they create a super villain, Saddam Hussein, by arming him with weapons of mass destruction. Then they share military and biological information with him in support of his war against Iran.

Under the watchful eye of the CIA, he gases his own people, but the Republicans don't see it because they are blinded by the ``right.'' Recently, their man leading the charge against the axis of evil justified a unilateral and pre-emptive strike against Iraq by citing a bogus congressional report. Now they want to go to war against a Frankenstein monster that they created. If this saga weren't so serious, it would almost be laughable.

- Gary N. Miller

Encino

No comparison

William Brady (Public Forum, Oct. 2) claims to have grown up during Adolf Hitler's reign and ``as a European.'' He then states that he believes Israel's Ariel Sharon shares the same ``type of mentality'' as Hitler.

Sharon has shown amazing restraint when faced with terrible, vicious provocations. Hitler slaughtered millions of absolute innocents.

- Dan Adam Goodman

Burbank

Endangered species 

In Washington, D.C., a group of people recently took to the streets to protest big business. Big business? Have you seen the stock market, the bankruptcies, the layoffs and all the downsizing? They better hurry up while there's still some big business left to complain about.

- R.J. Johnson

North Hollywood