PUBLIC FORUM.

Big oil's free lunch

Re ``Gusher of cash fueling fight on oil-tax measure'' (Oct. 10):

Gosh. Big oil's gusher of tax-free drilling, allowing fantastic record profits, would be capped only slightly, if Californians finally stop big oil's free lunch. California is the only oil-producing state that doesn't tax oil companies for drilling rights. Our state deserves to get the taxes Texas gets, don't we?

-- Jerold Drucker

Tarzana

Waste of resources

Re ``Spider in your room -- Call 911?'' (Oct. 8):

I was outraged at some of the reasons used that totally waste our 911 resources. Perhaps a determination at the time of arrival should be made to see if the call was totally unnecessary and a bill should be charged to the caller.

Whether it is $500 or $100, something should be charged to keep the caller, and this action might keep others, from making such calls.

-- Dave Schettini

La Crescenta

North Korea test

Re ``North Korea tests nukes'' (Oct. 9):

What sanctions can the world exert over North Korea -- one of the poorest nations in Asia? Any sanctions will exacerbate the people's poverty and general misery. As a relatively small country (landwise) its nuclear tests will harm its own people in the long run. Its bigger neighbors -- China, Russia and Japan -- would not tolerate any aggressive moves it might make.

The U.N. is powerless to really effect any change in its current strategy for world attention. Let it nuke its own land, water and atmosphere with these politically motivated tests.

-- Sol Taylor

Sherman Oaks

Blame the president

Re ``North Korea tests nukes'' (Oct. 9):

I am so glad after reading the paper this morning to find out no one has blamed President Bush for this crime to humanity. How can the American public stand for a president who should allow this to happen? After all, he was responsible for all that other stuff people accuse him of and now this.

And not only this, how about the page scandal with U.S. Rep. Mark Foley ... Didn't the president know about that weeks or months ago? Let me be the first to condemn this action. Hmm, can we blame the president for letting Antonio go to China? There has to a federal law or something that prohibits that kind of conduct.

-- Wynne Ritch

Granada Hills

Lowered standards

Re ``Military: Goals met'' (Oct. 10):

I wonder if any of the idiots participating in the Army's decision to accept applicants scoring at the lowest acceptable aptitude remember the debacle created by McNamara's 100,000.

-- Gary E. Skogen

Littlerock

Bradley Terminal

Re ``$576 million Bradley Terminal upgrade approved'' (Oct. 10):

Having just returned from the Far East, it was embarrassing to compare our Bradley Terminal to any of the international terminals in China, Thailand or Taipei.

There is no excuse for our nonworking escalators, or nonworking moving sidewalks. There is no excuse for the tawdry condition of our bathrooms. The maintenance of our airport is a disgrace and I can't fathom why no one is overseeing this. Terminal upgrade? Certainly. But let them take care of what they have in the meantime.

-- Jan Winning

West Hills

Experts, not politicos

Re ``LAUSD won't let mayor be part of hiring process'' (Oct. 6):

The process of selecting the new superintendent of LAUSD is too important to allow it to be hijacked by a man of the questionable egocentric character of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. His abuse of office in co-opting public resources and trust to broker the major grab for power that is his recently forced AB 1381 should alert us all to his motives in his current attempts to press the school board to treat this essential and difficult task with ``transparency.''

He would turn the search for a person of credentials, dedication and vision into a political circus if he succeeds in pushing mayors into evaluation and interview chambers, with the possible outcome equal in ineffectiveness to his sham administration. The school board should work with experts, not politicos, in selecting the next superintendent.

-- Kathleen Travers

Sunland

Filed under fiction

Don't know much about history. But I do know when it's written, North Korea's nuclear test will be but a comma. Rep. Foley will be about a page. And the Republicans' ``Contract With America'' will be a chapter retitled ``Contract on Americans.''

And thanks to Bush, U.S. history books will be found in the fiction section of our country's libraries.

-- Dick Denne

Toluca Lake