PUBLIC FORUM.

Best interest

Re ``Governor's legacy: Fixing state schools'' (Their Opinions, Jan. 8):

Let's grow up and recognize that the union leader's objective is to get the best deal for teachers -- not children. The teachers union president, Albert Shanker, candidly expressed it: ``When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interest of schoolchildren.''

The California Teachers Association will attempt to unmercifully beat anybody who opposes its agenda, but that doesn't mean we should put these foxes in charge of the henhouse. Let's put Teachers of the Year and others whose agenda is the best interest of the children in charge of shaping policy.

-- Steven Charles

Westlake Village

Try excellence

Re ``Scandals hamper recruiting'' (Jan. 8):

Call me politically incorrect, but I could not care less about the gender, race or religion of the firefighter who saves my life. Can we not dump ``diversity'' as a requirement and substitute, say, ``excellence?''

-- Gary Brandner

Northridge

LAPD recruiting

Re ``$5,000 to $10,000 bonuses bringing recruits to LAPD'' (Jan. 9):

As a member of the Los Angeles Police Department for the last 18 years, I believe all these efforts will be for naught. No officer I know who currently works for another agency would leave that agency and come to Los Angeles to work under the stifling weight of the federal consent decree. One way to have more recruits than you can handle is for the city attorney to immediately go to federal court and sue to make the auditors, who are making millions of dollars a year auditing the dotting of every ``i'' and crossing of every ``t,'' pack their bags and leave Los Angeles.

Unfortunately, Los Angeles city politicians are not leaders but political animals looking for another term, and the community will continue to lack police resources.

-- Andre Belotto

Los Angeles

The gold rules

Re ```Attic' almost eludes anti-mansion rules'' (Jan. 3):

The story about the two-bedroom attic only reminds me of the city-allowed nonsense on my street. On this narrow, winding, mountain, public thoroughfare, some city inspector -- and who knows who else -- approved letting owners of a home rebuild their own driveway so that its pavement extends four feet out onto the city's asphalt -- onto a street that's barely 20 feet wide -- and it's almost 2 feet high.

Compounding this obvious street violation is the fact that this is on a blind curve and a steep incline. No matter that it has caused many near accidents. I personally have dents in my car to prove it is a hazard. All just to make it easier for owners of a home to use their garage. Can you say ``payoff''?

-- Dave Petterson

Sherman Oaks

Latino mothers

Re ``U.S. deaths in Iraq pass milestone'' (Jan. 1):

With all the talk of fences at the borders, I found it interesting that two-thirds of the American soldiers killed in Iraq from Southern California were of Latino descent. I noticed one Irish name, a Jewish name and a Chinese name, but most had names such as Flores, Perez or Gonzales. They are fighting the war for us.

Let me, as a teacher in the elementary schools of L.A., tell you: These Latino mothers take beautiful care of their children -- ribbons in the hair, shirts ironed. These women are family-oriented, taking care of their elderly. I didn't realize that their sons are keeping America safe.

-- Noreen Bednar

West Hills

Pride and arrogance

Re ``Summer of sizzle'' (Our Opinions, Jan. 8):

Oh, now just look at who gets sucked into the meteorological Chicken Little syndrome. Why it's none other that the L.A. Daily News editorial department. Didn't the ``experts'' predict that our last hurricane season would be the worst in recent history, with upward of 17 major storms? As I recall, we had one minor hurricane, with not a peep from the ``experts'' on how wrong they were.

Historical records over the past 2,000 years show that weather fluctuates. Where it was warm enough to grow grapes in England during the 12th century, Dickens' chronicled the Thames freezing over in the 1860s. It is the height of pride and arrogance to think that man has a significant effect on weather patterns.

-- Stephen A. Downs

Valley Village

Better alternatives

Re ``Highway to help'' (Jan. 8):

Why keep building more freeways? Why aren't alternatives like the Orange Line or Metrolink built instead? Why not have bicycles (for a small fee) or subcompact, alternate-fuel, limited-range vehicles available for rent at the major stops, as in downtown L.A. and Warner Center?

I'm sure that means could be developed to limit access to such vehicles to people who prepay for their use. We have to stop building these roads if we want to slow down global warming and our dependence on oil.

-- Irving Leemon

Northridge

Proposition R

Re ``Take this as a lesson'' (Your Opinions, Jan 7):

Richard J. Warren seems to be laboring under a false belief that all who voted for Proposition R ``did not read the words and were taken in by the smooth words of the League of Women Voters et al.'' I am sure that I am not the only exception to Warren's fiction.

I am very disappointed in voters who have approved one term-limit measure after another. Term limits are anti-democratic and display a blatant mistrust of the voter. We should have the right to vote for the people we want to represent us. I was only sorry that Proposition R merely pushed back the term limits and did not eliminate them entirely. As for the League of Women Voters: It is a fine organization that has done much to increase voters' access to information in a nonpartisan manner.

-- David Holland

Northridge

Mel got a lot wrong

The Mayan civilization was one of the greatest in history. It gave birth to great architects, philosophers, mathematicians, inventors, doctors and astronomers, not to mention great agricultural techniques. Mel Gibson portrayed the Mayans as nothing more than a bunch of zombielike criminals who only had a thirst for blood -- people with no moral or social values.

I understand Gibson has to fabricate a product that will sell, and to do that he made use of graphic, excessive violence that, at times, I think was unnecessary. Also, when the Spanish invaded, the Mayan civilization no longer existed. The Aztec civilization was the one that the Spaniards destroyed.

As a descendent of this culture, I believe Gibson owes me, and those like me, an apology.

-- Everardo Gonzalez

Panorama City

Care of our own

Virtually every politician out there right now seems to have it in for the American people. American citizens are on welfare. Senior citizens can't pay for their medicine. We are sitting ducks for another attack because the politicians refuse to secure our borders. And, as we learned from Hurricane Katrina, we are in absolutely no shape to take care of our own during a catastrophe.

And what do our so-called leaders want to spend millions and billions of American taxpayer dollars on? Funding and enabling illegal alien activity. If the antics of our politicians continue, let's band together, cut off their funding and refuse to pay our taxes on April 15 until they get a clue or run out of money, whichever comes first.

-- James Lee Henson

West Hills

Never average Joe

Re ``It's not too late'' (Your Opinions, Jan 8):

I have often wondered why Publishers Clearing House winners all live in neighborhoods that are upper middle class or above. Yes, Tony Giger, I, too -- before I die -- want to learn why the average Joe never wins the prize.

-- Virginia Haas

Glendale