PUBLIC FORUM.

Arnold's new muscle

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

I see yet again the only way to get anything done in the state of California is to have money. Now, with those in big business backing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, maybe they will not have to pay for health benefits for their workers - kind of like the whole workers' compensation scam Arnold put together for them.

I see that Arnold, like all politicians, has forgotten the poor and the working class - you know, people whom the governor and the rest are sworn to protect under state and federal constitutions. I wonder what backdoor deals were made for this monetary backing - you know, the deals Arnold warned us about some months ago. Politicians all tell us what they think we want to hear, and once they're in, the screwing of the American people begins.

- David Hamblen

Sherman Oaks

Memory loss

Re ``Young losing touch with Selma history'' (March 7):

Those who participated in the civil-rights voting march in Selma, Ala., are afraid that younger people are forgetting what happened that day and why. This is also true in other areas. Not many still remember what it was like before Social Security.

I remember poorhouses, old folks' homes and orphanages. I remember bread lines; farmers, about to lose their farms to banks, hanging themselves from barn rafters; and hoboes who chose to hang from telegraph poles along the railroad tracks rather than starve or freeze to death. For 70 years, Social Security has been the safety net that President Franklin D. Roosevelt intended it to be - not a retirement account. It has saved million of Americans from destitution. How quickly history is lost.

- Philip Wilt

Van Nuys

Risky tables?

Re ``Tables risky on trains'' (March 7):

What are they going to come up with next to save lives on Metrolink? They are putting the blame for the Glendale tragedy everywhere, except where it belongs - roping off the seats, blaming the tables.

If the people in charge cannot figure out that the engine needs to be in front, then replace those people. When the vehicle was hit, it might have ended up two or three miles down the track, but the train would have been on the track, with no loss of lives.

- Don Nelson

Canyon Country

No way to know

Re ``Man mauled by 2 chimps was helpless'' (March 8):

There has been speculation on why the chimps attacked St. James Davis. With chimps, the attack could have been a generalized response from past experiences. They could have disliked men, not Davis in particular - perhaps their prior owner. With captive chimps you cannot account for what triggers this behavior, especially if they just escaped. Unlike gorillas, there is a reaction right off the cuff, followed only later by remorse. Just escaping could have triggered them to ``go ape.''

- Kathy Riordan

Chatsworth

Tigers and chimps

Re ``Man mauled by 2 chimps was helpless'' (March 8):

Everyone is shocked that two domestic chimpanzees viciously attacked and almost killed a man. I sure hope the folks who had such bad things to say about the people who were forced to shoot the Simi Valley tiger are taking notes.

If a couple of cute chimpanzees can do that in a few minutes, just what do all those tiger lovers think a full-grown tiger could have done if it had got just a little bit hungrier?

- Scott Yollis

Granada Hills

Humiliating life

Re ``Man mauled by 2 chimps was helpless'' (March 8):

I hate to see anyone get fingers bitten off by an ape, but it's hardly surprising that at some point these animals tire of being hunted down and dragged off to captivity - into a zoo or, what is worse, someone's house. They are dumb animals but not stupid. The jungle is their home. Life there is uncertain - but not humiliating.

- Jack Spiegelman

Los Angeles 

Politicians exempt

In the last week my phone has been ringing off the hook with unauthorized political ads for the mayoral race. On Monday I had six calls. I called my phone provider and was told that, even though I signed up to keep telemarketers from calling my home at all hours, the politicians voted to be excluded from that list.

So from George W. Bush on down to our candidates in the lowly L.A. mayoral race, it's OK to cheat - whatever it takes - and break the rules made for everyone else.

- Linda Terhune

Woodland Hills

Greenspan is a hack

Re ``Greenspan supports tax on spending'' (March 4):

Seniors depending on Social Security who voted for George W. Bush because he was against gay marriage are going to be sorry. Once Bush gets rid of or cuts the benefits of Social Security by using its money to create private accounts to enrich Wall Street, then he's going to add a consumption tax that will devastate a lot of seniors who no longer have incomes - forcing them to go back to work in their 70s and 80s or join the homeless.

Sen. Harry Reid is right in calling Alan Greenspan ``one of the biggest political hacks'' for saying a consumption tax would put more of a tax burden on higher incomes. Sure. Like predicting we'd find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

- John Wisdom Dancer

Canoga Park

Lesson from Iraq

Iraq has taught us one thing we can use at home: The police from the neighborhood must police themselves. Police from outside the neighborhood are looked on as the enemy.

- Jack Botwin

Sylmar

Free speech is great

Re ``Will we ever learn?'' (Their Opinions, March 4):

Perhaps professor Tom Plate of the University of California, Los Angeles, would be surprised to find that most conservatives would agree with his belief that American colleges should be free to exchange ideas. I'm surprised Plate would defend the free speech we all cherish and then try to slip us a Mickey Finn - using the accused-of-lying professor, Ward Churchill, and the accused-of-bigotry professor at Harvard as examples.

I don't think we can have an intelligent free exchange of ideas if someone is lying, and certainly universities should not be run by bigots who would have women as second-class citizens. Free speech is great because occasionally people will talk too much and expose themselves for what they really are. Plate talked too much.

- Ray Holm

Thousand Oaks

People of faith

Re ``Flawed commandments'' (Your Opinions, March 8):

In the March 8 letters columns we see an example of the shallowness of a ``free thinker.'' People of faith have no problem accepting the validity of the Ten Commandments since our Savior fully accepted the writings of Moses and continually made reference to their truthfulness. It is not stupidity to verify the Commandments based on the truth that Jesus Christ taught.

- Kenneth Grissom

La Crescenta

He is the problem

Just as ``clean air'' means more pollution and ``clean water'' means higher levels of arsenic from the Bush administration, the plan for so-called ``personal accounts'' is another lie to the American people on the grandest scale. Pure propaganda. Again. ``Privatization'' of the retirement safety net is another method this administration is using to gouge the elderly and redistribute money to President George W. Bush's wealthy base.

Recall that one reason there is a problem is because Bush squandered the money that came into the trust fund on his record-shattering deficit spending. Also, he may not be aware of it, but there already is a program of private accounts called individual retirement accounts or IRAs and Roth IRAs. The reason people don't use them more is because they're too mired down in paying off the bills every month.

- Linda Sutton

Woodland Hills