PUBLIC FORUM.

Mayor's loss

Re ``Mayor charts LAUSD course'' (Dec. 23):

Again the mayor is at it for control. It seems that every day he is trying to have his hand on everything -- taking over the school district and traveling to foreign lands on our money. Every day on the news, he is there in front of the cameras doing unnecessary things.

I never saw James Hahn, Richard Riordan or especially Tom Bradley work in this manner as mayor. It would be better if Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa just stayed in his office and did the mayor's job for the city -- or better yet if he got out and repaired the ruts and holes in the streets as he said he would do.

-- Bruce Redack

Palmdale

Make up your mind

Re ``Two wars, yet two hopes for peace'' (Their Opinions, Dec. 25):

Rich Lowry quotes a Dec. 23, 1944, prayer: ``Sir, this is (Gen. George) Patton talking. ... You have just got to make up your mind whose side you're on.'' The next day I was crossing the English Channel with the 66th Black Panther Infantry Division when one of our ships was hit by a German torpedo and more than 800 lives were lost.

I landed in Cherbourg on Christmas Day expecting to get into the Battle of the Bulge, but luckily for our division that did not happen. Unfortunately, there were approximately 80,000 casualties in that one battle among troops who were not as lucky. We are now in the most important war in our history, a war against an evil enemy whose goal is to kill all ``infidels.'' The time has arrived when the media, politicians and the rest of us must decide whose side we are on.

-- Bill Zelenka

Granada Hills

The harsh stench

Re ``Just a myth'' (Your Opinions, Dec. 25):

Smokers should speak only for themselves when doubting that anyone could detect cigarette smoke a block away. Neither my husband nor I ever was a smoker, and so we still have a highly developed sense of smell and a gag reflex.

The harsh stench of cigarette smoke is second only to the odor of a cat's dirty litter box in its ability to creep under a closed door, travel through hotel duct work into a nonsmoking room, or saturate cloth fibers of drapes or furniture.

-- Jennifer Rabuchin

Burbank

Vote on it

Re ``Mayor charts LAUSD course'' (Dec. 23):

The Los Angeles Unified School District needs to continue to move forward to increase student achievement -- and probably at a faster pace. I believe that the LAUSD community -- not the California Legislature, governor or other state officials -- should vote whether or not Mayor Villaraigosa should participate in controlling part of the district. If the voters say yes, then the district voters have spoken. We are all for increasing student achievement.

-- Jane Krause

Retired LAUSD teacher

Tujunga

Isn't that sweet?

Now Sacramento is importing a foreign crook that will do ``business'' in California. This is Lottomatica, the Italian company cited in Italy for antitrust violation, and Lottomatica bought the U.S.-based GTECH. Our lawmakers didn't know about the Italian takeover. Lottery Director Joan Borucki and other lottery officials are mum about the Italian takeover. And now -- after the fact -- a lawmaker wants to introduce changes in the state's gaming system? Is anyone awake in Sacramento?

-- Dante F. Rochetti

West Hills

A joke, right?

I read the movie reviews by your two resident critics, Bob Strauss and Glenn Whipp, and it never fails to amaze me that these two ``critics'' find a way to love the films I hate and to hate the films I love. The coup de grace was in the Dec. 23 edition. Whipp reviewed a 40-year-old French film by Jean-Luc Godard playing at one theater. He gave it three stars, which indicates to me that it is a good film worth seeing.

But, according to Whipp, the film has a ``complete lack of narrative focus,'' and the main character with the most dialogue is not the prostitute on screen, but Godard himself as a narrator ``who whispers Marxist musings ad nauseum throughout the movie.'' Is this a joke or what? This final review has convinced me that the Daily News film critics are a total waste of time.

-- Gary Fullerton

Santa Clarita