PUBLIC FORUM YOU CALL THIS COLD?

Re ``The Southland chatter is coming from teeth'' (Nov. 30):

As one who went to college in Ithaca, N.Y., and Cambridge, Mass. - and had a girlfriend in Montreal - allow me to inform you that it never gets cold in Southern California. A resident here for 29 years, I have been cold precisely once: at the top of Mt. Pios on a brisk March evening.

Cold? I see no icicles forming on Angelenos' noses. Nor do I see caravans of cars proceeding sideways down a hill, horizontally ... due to ``black ice.'' I do not recall frozen engine blocks, or oil so thick you could cut it with a knife. My sole item of ``outerwear'' is a light poplin jacket, which sees use perhaps twice a season. Cold? Pantywaists.

- James F. Glass

Chatsworth

Sugar and chemicals

Re ``Junk-food ban eats revenues'' (Nov. 30):

Coke, Pepsi and other junk food may be junk, but they're certainly not food. They are sugar and chemicals with no real food component, used as a profit-delivery system for giant ``food'' conglomerates - at the expense of our children's health and our overburdened public healthcare system.

Junk-food junkies wind up obese and ill, costing taxpayers untold billions. The soft-drink cartels blackmail school districts, including the LAUSD, into pushing their sweet poison by withholding tens of thousands of dollars in ``sponsorship deal'' bribes if they don't submit. These are the criminals.

- Marshall Abernathy

Woodland Hills

Ugly building anyway

Re ``Disney venue reflects badly on downtown'' (Nov. 26):

The controversy over the reflections off Disney Hall, generating dangerous glare, and heating of adjacent buildings, merely serves to obscure the fundamental problem. The design of the structure, with its shiny curvilinear surfaces, constitutes one of the ugliest buildings ever built.

It is difficult to imagine that Frank Gehry was serious when he proposed such a monstrosity; I defy anyone to explain how the structure could be made to appear uglier. A scale model of the building can be produced by leaving several corrugated cardboard boxes outside during the rainy season. After a couple of soakings, they will assume the approximate shape of Disney Hall. Cover them with aluminum foil, and presto: scale model. Yuck!

- Robert A. Gismondi

Reseda

Accountability

Re ``Busway politics'' (Editorial, Nov. 29):

The Daily News thinks stopping a multimillion-dollar single-line project, spitting in the face of CEQA law with its broader implications, and refusing to consider a comprehensive transit plan for Valleyites ``pointless.''

The details of the MTA plan do not support it being realistic; study them. Saying the Orange Line is ``the most popular plan for relieving Valley traffic congestion'' shows ignorance; it won't relieve congestion - and being ``most popular'' loses relevance once you leave high school. If citizens don't hold the MTA accountable for its multimillion-dollar actions, who will?

- Richard Hilton 

Valley Glen

Shoplifting a cart

Re ``Council gets rolling on law to keep carts off streets'' (Nov. 29):

The Glendale City Council will pass a law to fine grocers $500 for stolen (not ``lost'') carts. They will spend city funds to ``educate residents about not taking carts.'' But will they instruct police officers to arrest anyone pushing a stolen cart on city streets?

When I was a girl, we often carried groceries three miles from store to our home. Stealing a grocery cart was not an option to our ``olden days'' minds. I don't think we were more honest, but we were sure that the cops would not allow the theft.

- Barbara Vickroy

Escondido

No on yes people

Cartoonist Patrick O'Connor is way off base in portraying President Bush's Cabinet as a bunch of yes-men and -women (View From the Valley, Nov. 28). The Cabinet is not an anarchist rave party; it's the people who direct the federal departments and implement the president's policies.

Although Bush was slimed by opponents after Al Gore's coup failed, he ``reached out'' by appointing Democrat Norman Mineta as secretary of transportation. Mineta is the reason that arthritic senior citizens were forced to do calisthenics at airports after 9-11, and open their trousers and skirts, while young men wearing headdresses and carrying rocket launchers were ushered into first class.

- Charles K. Sergis

Calabasas

You got yours

Re ``Pork over seniors'' (Your Opinions, Nov. 29):

Ah, come on, Millie (Cook), you must be the same age as I am. We both know that Social Security started in 1935. We also both know that we have got our money's worth. Yes, we have. We have Medicare paid for from our Social Security checks since we were 65. We have no complaints.

The other complaint about the taxes being wasted on meaningless projects all over the country ... we were both around when the Senate and House passed some monstrosity called ``revenue sharing.'' President Nixon, in an attempt at nonpartisanship, which is a fraud, signed the bill. That was to make higher taxes more palatable because some of the money would be returned to the states. That was what that spending frenzy was all about.

But 35 years later, no way you can blame President Bush.

- Theodora Howell

West Hills

Facts are facts

Re ``Alike elections?'' (Their Opinions, Nov. 29):

Roger Hull draws a comparison to the elections in the Ukraine and the U.S. election of 2004, due to the exit polls being way off. The fact is the American exit polls weren't way off. The advance exit polls (those taken in the morning) showed a trend to Kerry, and an argument can be made that people saw that trend and ran to the polls to vote the other way. Later in the day, the tides started turning. They just weren't reported as loudly. As a Kerry supporter, I find it hard to say this, but the facts are the facts: The Democrats got outgunned. Bush ran to the right, and Kerry tried to follow instead of running to his base.

Three million votes isn't even close. This was no 2000.

- Jim Alger

Porter Ranch

Move on, already

Every day these pages contain the opinions that all of us who voted for Bush are ignorant fools. You would think that Kerry actually won the presidency, what with all the comments on bad Cabinet appointees, Iraq and so on. I'm sure that those ``intelligent, well-informed'' people who write this stuff are the same ones still driving around with Kerry '04 bumper stickers on their cars.

- Mitch Sternbach

West Hills

It's all our money

Thumbs up on your editorial ``A federal failure'' (Our Opinions, Nov. 26). In it, you state: ``The (federal spending) bill includes no shortage of pork and the usual political nonsense, but only a paltry $305 million to reimburse state and local governments that foot the bill for Washington's failed immigration policies by housing illegal immigrants in their prisons and jails.''

Let's not forget that's our tax money as well. As for immigration reform, Bush's answer is to give amnesty to those illegals already here and thus attract more with his ``guest worker'' program. An amnesty by any other name is still an amnesty. How about our emergency rooms and hospitals closing because illegal aliens use them as free health clinics? What does Bush have to say about that?

- Haydee Pavia

Laguna Woods