PUBLIC FORUM.

Only the deserving

Re: "$100 million county plan for homeless" (April 5):

If someone can afford to pay for beer, wine, booze, cigarettes, crack cocaine, marijuana and a few bucks for lottery tickets and a prostitute, why should honest, decent, hard-working taxpayers have to provide for the rest of their support? Cities, counties, states and the federal government must come up with a plan where each individual must get an education and a job with which to be self-supporting.

Only those people determined to be mentally or physically unable to work deserve to be helped. As to the rest, including our elected representatives, let's come up with a plan to illegally send them to other countries, south of our border where of course they will immediately be granted amnesty.

- David Silverman 

Chatsworth

Health care cure?

Re: "Health care cure" (Editorial, April 6):

So you think Massachusetts has a great idea. Let's consider the comparison of illegals. Massachusetts may have what, five or six, maybe even as many as 20, illegals while California has a couple of million. Then those "irresponsible" folks who do not have health insurance: Could the reason be they simple cannot afford it?

Finally, let's say my employer provides health care insurance for me. Let's say my employer pays "maybe $600" each month for that coverage and charges me, oh maybe $100. Now, my employer cancels all of my health insurance and saves $5,700 each year and now the government says I can afford my own health insurance. Net cost to me ... who knows. But I'll bet it's more than $1,200 per year.

- Bill Merriman

Tujunga

Celebrity worship

Re: "America has a love affair with Katie" (April 6):

This was a fluff piece that belonged in your magazine section with other celebrity gossip, rather than front page "news."

I will judge Katie's performance in her new job as the CBS Evening News anchor by the content of her news reporting. I will not be influenced by the tint of her hair, the shape of her legs, the style of her shoes, or how perky she is. If Katie's new job is a step forward for female journalists, the writer's celebrity worship took that cause several steps backward.

- Charles Robinson 

Saugus

DWP human' extras

Re: "Extras at issue in DWP" (April 3):

All one need do is put these sensational "extras" numbers into some perspective. The DWP annual revenue is approximately $3 billion. The amount it transfers to the city fund as "profit" is about $200 million. Mind you this is money that could go back to the ratepayer, but the city insists on keeping the ratepayers' overcharge for itself.

With some simple, nonhysterical math, the "lavish extras" funds total a whopping 0.05 percent of the total revenue and 0.75 percent of the excess money sent to the city coffers as a de facto profit. Is it unreasonable for a company to spend less than one-half of one-tenth of 1 percent of its revenue to provide some "human" elements in its workplace? I guess the Daily News thinks so.

- Steven Pruett

Glendale

Pay up

Re: "Mahony calls for support of Senate immigration bill" (April 6):

As Cardinal Mahony asks that all citizens should welcome immigrants regardless of their legal status, so that health care, education and work is provided, I wonder if his eminence will offer a free pass at all private parochial schools of his archdiocese to the children of said immigrants to help relieve the burden at our LAUSD schools. Will he put the church's money where his mouth is? (After his fast, of course.)

- Marcelo Rachilewski

Northridge

Out of politics

Re: "Mahony calls for support of Senate immigration bill" (April 6):

Excuse me, but I thought that tax-exempt churches were supposed to stay out of politics, or lose the exemption. So when will someone stand up and tell Cardinal Mahony to shut his mouth? Better yet, maybe I'll look up the number for the IRS.

- John Lynch 

Studio City

Unfashionable GPA 

Re: "Dropout remedy: relevant courses" (April 6):

How discouraging to read of the girl who in the ninth grade had all the answers for her future life and refused further high school input on how to speak correctly, how to write orders and how to understand the math for contracts. She has a l.8 grade-point average, which will not allow her to survive in the cutthroat world of fashion. Nicole has basically traded in her opportunity for grown-up success for the popular teenage illness, "attitude."

- Paul Vaughn

Van Nuys

Immigration geniuses

Re: "A chance to build on rallies" (April 6):

It is rather ironic that Gilda and Enrique Ochoa deride the growing "income inequality" between rich and poor, while calling for solidarity in support of the "invisible labor of undocumented workers." The undocumented of which you so strongly support are the very reason for the growing income disparity.

And you geniuses want to make all of them legal? Why? So we can have millions more come over the border, drive wages down further, and have to hear you claim that once again there is a growing inequality between rich and poor?

- K. Wesley Patten

Los Angeles

Crying wolf

Re: "Grand jury eyes congresswoman" (Briefly, April 6):

In this day and age of heightened security to assert that Rep. Cynthia McKinney was singled out because she was black does nothing for the fight against racism. It's now to the point of, "The little boy that cried wolf." Instead of praising security for doing their job and apologizing for her unprofessional actions, she is using racism as an excuse for her arrogance.

She should be arrested and charged like anyone else that would act this way especially in a building of our nation's capital. Political correctness is quickly eroding the laws of this country and people need to be held accountable for their actions. Will security now be afraid to stop someone without ID for fear of an international incident?

- Laurien DuTremble

Northridge

It's our right

Re: "Senate GOP divided over immigration bill" (April 5):

Why are we considering a "working program" for illegal immigrants? Do you truly believe that undocumented workers are not using fraudulent IDs and other family members' Social Security numbers already? How will one deal with the problem when it all comes out that they are using fraudulent IDs, and now you want to reward them?

I am a taxpaying citizen and say build the fence and protect us from further crossing. Illegal immigrants do not have the right to say you can't build a fence. It is our right, not privilege, to enforce these laws. President Vicente Fox needs to take responsibility for his country, President Bush needs to go back to Mexico and stay there.

- Enedina Rosales

Moorpark

Chicano activists

I find it amusing that, during the recent rallies and ditch days, certain Chicano activists are implying that California was stolen from Mexico when the state owes its existence to the first Chicano activist. California was only under Mexican rule for 27 years, and there were only about 4,000 Mexican citizens living in California when the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed in 1848.

Mariano Vallejo, former commanding general of California under Mexican rule, persuaded most of them to accept U.S. citizenship, lobbied for statehood and became a member of the first state Senate. Both the city of Vallejo and the nuclear submarine USS Vallejo are named in honor of the "Father of California."

- John S. Soet

Burbank