PUBLIC FORUM PROTECT THE CHILDREN.

Re ``Pope breaks silence on sex scandal'' (March 22):

Yes, it is proper for the pope and cardinals throughout the United States to condemn priests for sexually abusing children. However this is not the issue. Priests, police officers, teachers as well as friends and neighbors have sexually abused children and will continue to do so.

The issue is, when the church learns of the abuse, do they take steps to protect children through reporting or do they transfer the offender, not telling the next parish of the allegations against the priest? This has happened in the past, both here in Los Angeles as well as throughout the United States. Cardinal Roger Mahony has stated that he knows of priests from years ago who have molested children and who are just now being suspended. Why weren't they reported when it came to the church's attention? And what of the victims?

- William Dworin

Valencia

Clearly unable

Do you see it this way too? Chairman Arafat is clearly unable to stop Palestinian violence. Reasons for this must vary: He's not a leader for this younger generation of embittered men and boys. In his terror of offending 'old-school' terrorists, he doesn't take an authoritative stand. He could get assassinated.

Giving him a benefit of doubt: There appears no way he can or will meet the fanatics face to face. He is not reaching individual Palestinian terrorist factions and has no creative thought to inform them of the futility of their violence. If he literally has no influence over the Palestinian people, it's folly to continue begging him to stop the violence. Maybe he doesn't want to.

- Shirley Osborn

Los Angeles

Do you see a trend?

It is dumb to give illegal aliens money to enter our state colleges. It is dumber to give our tax money for college tuition to high school students who achieve a 50 percent grade average. Limit this gift to the top 5 percent grade average.

It is dumbest to give the unions the authority to dictate policies, books and curricula. The unions are the group that almost destroyed L.A.'s educational system with their demands to establish these policies a few years ago. Now our former socialist City Council members are in the state Assembly asking to have the unions run our schools. Let it be known we do not want their bill AB 2160.

- Charles Dusheck

Chatsworth

Teachers need more say

Why do teachers want more of a say in determining curriculum and textbooks? Perhaps this incident from my teaching days will help to explain it: I was faculty adviser of my high school's student newspaper. I was told that my editor-in-chief, a straight-A 12th-grader, would have to drop out of journalism to take a practical art class (typing) in order to graduate. I appealed to LAUSD downtown, since the lad's everyday duties as editor-in-chief involved page layout and considerable typing (both practical arts) and he wanted to pursue a career in journalism. My arguments got nowhere.

I cannot, for obvious reasons, detail how I finagled to keep this young man in my journalism class. Suffice it to say that he later earned a college degree in journalism, and got his first job as a reporter - on the Daily News.

- Michael Wiener

Encino

More amnesties

According to your March 24 editorial, the Russian Mafia is a fast-growing crime group. We all ask ourselves, how do we let criminals in our country? One good reason is that they get here illegally and eventually some nationalities gain amnesty from our president and thus enjoy all the freedoms and privileges of legal residents and American citizens.

The current amnesty that President George W. Bush wants to grant to hundreds of thousands of illegal alien Mexicans will put aside any investigation of criminal background. Soon there will be more amnesties for Mexicans as well as other nationalities who are here illegally. Can we think of a better way to destroy a country?

- Haydee Pavia

West Hills

Didn't happen overnight

In the March 24 editorial ``Homeland security crisis,'' you state that ``an obvious lesson to be learned from Sept. 11 is the need for the INS to patrol the country's borders more carefully and scrutinize applicants for visas more closely.'' Did it really take 9-11 for the Daily News to understand the Immigration and Naturalization Service is not doing its job? The San Fernando Valley today is swamped with illegal aliens and it did not happen overnight.

- Larry Brown

Riverside

Tobacco lawsuit lotto

Another dead smoker wins the tobacco company lawsuit lotto. Who were the morons on this jury panel? Obviously, any smoker assumes a health risk when smoking, regardless of whether the cigarettes are listed as light or otherwise.

I say this because, as a very young boy, I took one of my father's cigarettes and inspected it. My father grabbed my hand and took it away saying, ``Don't touch these; they're bad for you.'' Now, since he knew the health risk of cigarettes as far back as the mid-1960s, why are others collecting now? The health problems associated with tobacco have been widely publicized for decades. Once again, personal responsibility goes up in smoke.

- James L. Rahm

Chatsworth

How unusual

Re ``DWP slush funds probed,'' (March 16):

Good for City Controller Laura Chick. She's doing just what she promised when she ran for controller. How unusual for a politician to keep her word. Thanks, Laura.

- Evelyn Kaufman

Studio City

Veterans services

I've come to depend on services at the Sepulveda Veterans Administration to supplement the limited health care and prescription benefits available through my HMO. I've found the Sepulveda VA facilities and personnel very satisfactory, and particularly appreciate the many diagnostic tests available there - a location ideally suited to residents of the San Fernando and Santa Clarita Valleys.

I understand that many services are under consideration to be dropped from the Sepulveda VA and transferred to the Los Angeles VA. Already this year, there has been a 350 percent increase in VA medication co-payments, and now we are faced with drastic reductions in available services, just as so many World War II, Korea, and Vietnam veterans are facing significant age-related health problems.

- Fred Blechman

West Hills

And the husband?

Did I miss your follow-up article on that Russell Yates guy in Texas? You know, the one who kept his mentally ill wife barefoot and pregnant until she murdered their five children. The last I heard, he was trying to blame her doctors.

She went to prison, but I'm certain authorities would have charged this guy with spousal abuse and putting his children in harm's way. The really scary part is that with his wife in prison for life, he's free to start all over again.

- Severn Day

Moorpark

The real obstructionist 

Morris Schorr (Public Forum, March 25) accuses the Republicans of obstructing Senate business. This is really amazing since the Democrats control the Senate and their leader, Tom Daschle, is the real obstructionist. He will not let the Senate vote on any judge that he considers as a conservative and most of the bills passed by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Is he afraid that conservative judges will uphold the Constitution of the United States?

- William R. Zelenka

Granada Hills

Incremental decline

Slow-motion mass murder by street gangs.

Slow-motion use of the death penalty.

Slow-motion disarming of law-abiding citizens.

- Victor Keverline

Santa Clarita