PUBLIC FORUM.

Street vendors

Re ``Street vendors push it to the limit'' (March 6):

The illegal street vendors are a problem, but as long as they have customers they will continue to sell. Many of these vendors are parked outside the schools, parks, etc., and students are their major source of business.

A possible solution would be to make their products - corn, tamales, chicharrones and the various fruits - available in the schools. These are basically healthier choices than the soda, potato chips, etc., that our governor wants to take out of the schools. Perhaps we could solve two problems at once.

- Terri Croswhite

Sylmar

Health hazard 

``Street vendors push it to the limit'' highlights just one of the many quality-of-life issues caused by our cities' failure to address Special Order 40. According to your article, immigration officials don't take action unless they are given specific information that a person is in the United States illegally. I ask you, how can our senior lead officers check the offenders when their hands have been tied by Special Order 40?

One of the many problems caused by allowing illegal immigration are health related, including tuberculosis, which is fast becoming resistant to drugs. Does anyone remember ``Typhoid Mary'' from the 1930s?

- John Bunte

Sunland

Tip of the iceberg 

Re ``Street vendors push it to the limit'' (March 6):

Street vendors don't hurt anyone ... just the homeowners, businesses, tax structure, police response time, medical services, yada yada. When is this city going to come to terms with the problem? When is the U.S. government going to address the problem? When is the American public going to say enough? What is it going to take? Street vendors are just the tip of the iceberg. I'm outta here.

- Greg Beckman Sr.

North Hollywood

Govern by club

Re ``Arnold gets muscle for reforms'' (March 7):

Once there were three branches of government - executive, legislative and judicial - each keeping an eye on the other. Somebody must have changed the system when we weren't looking. Bush takes to the campaign trail every time he wants Congress to do something. Who needs Congress (OK, maybe not such a bad idea)? Legislation by campaign?

Our governor has an even more effective tool: the initiative process. Formerly this was just a tool for special interests. Now Schwarzenegger swings initiatives around like a club. Forget the Legislature; let's have government by the totally uninformed. Are we joking or just a laughingstock?

- Don Feinberg

Tarzana

Not so harmless

Re ``Chimps gone wild'' (March 4):

So, a loose chimpanzee mutilates a man by tearing off his face and genitalia. I guess these wild animals are not as harmless as the Moorpark tiger lovers think they are.

- Mike Pro

Simi Valley 

Head start fails

Re ``Records, endurance pushed at marathon'' (March 7):

I'm so sorry for poor Lyubov Denisova, the L.A. Marathon women's division winner. I agree with her that the men had a big advantage. It was truly terrible that she and the other elite women runners only had a 15-minute, 50-second head start over the elite men. How are women ever going to be able to prove themselves equal to men without a greater head start? It's just not fair.

- Daryl Smith 

Chatsworth

Immature decisions

Re ``Court bans executions of juveniles'' (March 2):

Once again some of our Supreme Court justices have taken leave of their legal obligation to make decisions according to the Constitution. In particular, Justice Kennedy has decided that other countries' abandonment of the death penalty makes it necessary for him to rule outside the bounds of our Constitution in order to fall in line with world opinion.

He also believes that juveniles ``lack maturity'' in this area. How is it, then, that a juvenile can be too immature to be accountable for the murder of another person, but, according to this same court, and in particular Justice Kennedy, be capable of deciding to have an abortion - the taking of a human life - and not even have to have parental or otherwise adult counsel?

- Dana Franck

Glendale

Checkpoint shooting

Re ``U.S. shoots freed writer'' (March 5):

This bit about ``investigating'' the shooting at a checkpoint that resulted in the death of an Italian security agent who had helped negotiate the release of an Italian journalist seems like a scene out of ``The Twilight Zone.'' Investigate what? The vehicle ran a checkpoint - a place to be stopped and ``checked.''

Why did the driver not stop at the ``checkpoint'' in order to be checked? I feel bad that a person was killed, but I have to ask: Did he not stop at the checkpoint? Maybe the investigation should start there.

- Ray P. Keesler

La Crescenta

Unheard of, sort of

Re ``Assad defies call for rapid pullback'' (March 6):

The head of Syria says he might get his soldiers out of Lebanon in a few months but they're really not sure when or how they'll remove them. Amazing. A country sends troops into another country, in the Middle East, and now they have no exit strategy to get them out. How can such a thing happen? I for one am shocked.

- R.J. Johnson

North Hollywood

Flawed commandments

Re ``Banned in public'' (March 3):

The questionable 3,000-year-old Ten Commandments are flawed. Seven of them are un-American and the other three were plagiarized from the Code of Hammurabi, penned 3,000 years earlier. Sorry about that, but there goes the theory they were written by a supreme being.

Tax monies would be better spent on teaching all of our citizens the U.S. Constitution. Americans have the right to be superstitious; however, they do not have the right to try to force their stupidity on free-thinking citizens.

- Dick Denne

Toluca Lake

Entitlements indeed

Re ``Crisis of salesmanship'' (Their Opinions, March 3):

Marianne Means states the reason the Democrats oppose President Bush's proposal to fix Social Security is, ``... they understand that his long-range goal is to undercut the foundation of the Democratic-designed welfare state.''

Entitlements, Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare make up 54 percent of Bush's $2.6 trillion budget. That isn't even including the new prescription drug benefit for seniors. I would say it is definitely time to undercut the welfare state.

- Robert Gardner

Sylmar

Expanding public service

Re ``Moneymaking ventures'' (Your Opinions, March 2):

I take great exception to Ron Honthaner's letter saying that Scientology in Clearwater, Fla., has become a major real estate developer. I have been a Scientologist for 27 years and have been to the church's headquarters in Clearwater.

Scientology is one of the fastest-growing religions in America. True, it has bought a lot of buildings in Clearwater and in some cases built new ones. But these buildings are for the purpose of servicing the church's expanding public or housing its large staff.

- John Eberhard

Sylmar

Another milestone

It's a shame that the American public is so used to American casualties in Iraq that we can't even get an acknowledgment from the media that we are at the 1,500-death milestone.

- Joey Liu

Newbury Park