PUBLIC FORUM.

Health care for all

Re ``Arnold vetoes universal health care'' (Sept. 23):

So Arnold has vetoed the universal health care bill because he doesn't believe that ``socialized medicine'' is the solution to California's health care problems. Well, ``socialized medicine'' seems to be OK for President George W. Bush, his administration and all the members of Congress.

Medicare is also a health care program run or sponsored by the government. Medicare is a single-payer plan, as is the plan in state Sen. Sheila Kuehl's bill. Administration costs just 4 percent for public health plans, compared with 15 percent for those of private insurance companies. Just look at how much money Gov. Schwarzenegger has received from the insurance industry, and you will see the real reason he vetoed the bill. The millions of dollars the private insurance companies have spent on lobbying and on campaign contributions are keeping out health care for all Californians.

-- Doris Dent

Studio City

Whack-a-mole method

Re ``L.A. officials, residents celebrate neighborhood transformation'' (Sept. 23):

North Hills residents are celebrating the renaissance of their neighborhood and taking back their streets from gangs, drug dealers and prostitutes, but is the city of Los Angeles with its Safer Cities Initiative just playing a giant game of crime-fighting Whack-A-Mole?

Even though police say they are doing the same thing in Hollywood, Baldwin Village and MacArthur Park, what's happening in the other 479 square miles of this vast city? It wouldn't be the first time banner headlines have claimed victory over crime in one area, only to have it pop up in another.

-- Sandy Sand

West Hills

Learn it from Al

Re ``Summer's heat off the charts'' (Sept. 23):

This article says 2006 was the second-hottest summer in U.S. history. But nowhere does it say what year was the warmest summer. I'll give you a hint: ``The Great American Dust Bowl.'' Remember that? The hottest summer was in 1936.

Could it be that such inconvenient facts go against the global-warming theory? Five of the hottest summers were in the 1930s, long before gas-guzzling air conditioning and sport utility vehicles. Those who forget history are doomed to learn ``history'' from Oliver Stone movies. Those who forget science are doomed to learn ``science'' from Al Gore documentaries.

-- Bruce K. Bell

Moorpark

Not attire, attitude

Re ``Bush gets what-for at U.N.'' (Their Opinions, Sept. 22):

I hate to nitpick one of my favorite columnists, but I think Maureen Dowd's being galled by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's tieless attire at the United Nations suggests she was not distinguishing the sizzle from the steak. You can't evaluate the honesty or competence of a judge or an attorney by what kind of tie he wears to court, of a doctor by his choice of a white or Hawaiian shirt, or of a president speaking aboard an aircraft carrier by his costume as a flier instead of a head of state. (Can you?)

What one wears to the U.N. simply isn't as important as what one says and does. Here I fully agree with Dowd that we have to listen more closely and deal with facts instead of fancy.

-- Hal Rothberg

Calabasas

Read his lips

Bill O'Reilly writes that ``Hyperpartisans are damaging America.'' I totally agree. However, I would say that, when speaking or writing about hyperpartisans, Bill should look in the mirror. Everything he says or does is partisan. He claims to be independent, but he is a registered Republican.

You can tell when Bill is lying or exaggerating on TV: His lips are moving. How can anyone work for Fox ``News'' and call himself a journalist? He is just another hypocrite on the right-wing payroll.

-- Stanley Moore

Winnetka

Republican benefits

Re ``Who benefits?'' (Your Opinions, Sept. 25):

John Gonzalez of Saugus tells us Democrats would lose the illegal vote. The truth is that Republican George W. Bush and his Republican lackeys on Capital Hill are the ones interested in grabbing the Hispanic vote. I don't suppose Gonzalez recalls Republican Bush telling Mexican President Vicente Fox that this nation has failed millions of illegal immigrants and that he would see to it that 8 million Mexican illegals would be given free entry into the United States.

``We must make our immigration laws more rational and more humane,'' Republican George W. Bush told 200 Latino supporters attending his first White House announcement of the election year.

-- Bill Noyes

Walnut

Cutting and running

It was Ronald Reagan before Bush-Cheney-Rove who used the slogan ``We won't cut and run'' in response to 231 U.S. troops being bombed to death in a Beirut bunker. Reagan himself did not ``stay the course,'' as he cut and ran a month later when he wisely pulled our troops out of harm's way.

Reagan, like Bush and Clinton, also tried to manipulate public opinion as he attacked the island of Grenada two days after the Beirut nightmare. Reagan, unlike George W. Bush, was smart enough to realize his mistake and pull U.S. troops out. Using war to rally Americans around the flag and the president is a rerun for public opinion polls and Haliburton contracts.

-- Denis F. Cremins

Simi Valley

Holy tribunal

Our leaders call themselves Christians; yet their actions are basely cowardly and certainly not Christian. With their tribunal bill, they abandon the rule of law and give immunity to those that have committed or will commit ``torture'' and human-rights abuses.

Currently they detain, charge and judge and do not tell the detainees what they supposedly are guilty of and deny them access to U.S. courts. Then our leaders exempt themselves and those who order torture and human-rights abuses from prosecution. Such godless and scofflaw leaders have not existed since the times of Pilate, Hitler or Stalin. God must be setting up a tribunal for them.

-- Gene Pearcy

Canoga Park

Religion of peace?

Before the recent remarks by Pope Benedict XVI, reading from a comment by a 14th-century Byzantine emperor that there was a command from Muhammad ``to spread by the sword the faith he preached,'' we were constantly told that Islam is a religion of peace.

The record shows otherwise. Theo van Gogh was killed because he described Muslim women's lives. Riots erupted when the Danes printed cartoons of Muhammad. After the pope's reading of the 14th-century remark, a nun was shot in the back four times by a true believer, and churches were burned in the West Bank. Sunni Muslims kill Shiite Muslims, and vice versa.

What has the Muslim world produced except violence? Planes crashing into buildings, body bombs killing innocent people indiscriminately? It seems that Emperor Paleologos was right.

-- Joseph Nicassio

Valencia

No news is good news

The amount of bad news reported in newspapers, television broadcasts and news radio is overwhelmingly depressing. Americans rarely hear anything good about what happens here in America. It would be enlightening to hear about the good things that occur in America -- not just about the crime, violence and murder that permeate almost every aspect of our media.

Many young people are confused and disoriented about the society they live in, and to be constantly bombarded with miserable depressing news on a daily basis doesn't promote a good outlook on our society; nor does it give them much worth living for.

-- Joe Hale

Sylmar