BACK IN OUR OWN BACK YARD

It was not necessary to travel some 3,000 miles to Boston to cover an innovative national service project (“Hard Corps Activism,” by Scott Shuger, Sept. 19). Just a few city blocks south of Times Mirror Square stands the headquarters of the Los Angeles Conservation Corps.

Founded in 1986, the corps sends out daily about 400 young people, ages 15 to 23, to work in this city. Their range of tasks includes planting trees along the streets, clearing trails in the Santa Monica Mountains and teaching their peers about AIDS. At the end of a workday, about half of them, as participants in our education program, hit the books in quest of their General Equivalency Diplomas.

Most of the youth in the corps are from our inner city, working hard to make a better life for themselves and doing their best to make Los Angeles livable. They are not likely to pull up stakes for “a better business climate” elsewhere. Their commitment, borne out by their labor and personal determination, is to Los Angeles.

JAN GREENBERG LEVINE

BOARD MEMBER, LOS ANGELES CONSERVATION CORPS

Last month, the L.A. Conservation Corps dedicated its East Los Angeles satellite center, an abandoned horticultural compound made available by the Los Angeles Unified School District. At the dedication, Southern California Edison announced a private investment of $500,000 in the corps, to be used to employ members. Although invited, a Times representative was nowhere to be seen.

While Boston’s City Year is an excellent youth corps organization, ignoring what’s happening in your own back yard seems shortsighted.

JOHN K. VAN DE KAMP

PRESIDENT, BOARD OF DIRECTORS

LOS ANGELES CONSERVATION CORPS

ASIAN-AMERICAN MODELS

It was exciting to open the Sept. 19 magazine and see the wonderful layout by Michael Eisenhower, “Urban Bravado” (Men’s Fall Fashion). It’s about time that a mainstream publication dealt with the Asian-American male as more than either a computer nerd or a ruthless businessman. Please continue to feature Asian-Americans. That this letter is even warranted means that we still have a long way to go.

YATMAN W. LAI

Van Nuys

TRANSLATION GOES TO THE DOGS

In “Basic Training” (Palm Latitudes, Sept. 19) Jennie Nash referred to the German word Schutzen as a type of dog training. The proper word is Schutzhund, which means guard dog and refers to the training as well. Schutzen is a German verb meaning to protect or to guard.

JOHN DUSTIN

San Marino

THE GREAT CHASE THAT NEVER TOOK PLACE

“Kamikaze Drivers” (by Wanda Coleman, Three on the Town, Sept. 26) reminds me of my own “almost” chase scene. I repair, and drive, Porsches. Fast ones. I’ve heard my share of customers’ stories about outrunning police cars in order to avoid getting a ticket.

“Hey,” I was thinking, “it’s my turn.” Besides, I’ve gotten too many tickets already.

So I’m driving eastward on 19th Street in Costa Mesa, doing my usual five or 10 miles an hour over the speed limit, when I notice a motorcycle cop heading westbound toward me. He points at my car and motions for me to pull over. Maybe, I think, it’s because I don’t have a front license plate.

“OK, gang,” I say to myself, “it’s my turn to outrun ‘em.”

A second goes by, as does my first chance at a side street. I glance in my mirror and see the motorcycle making a U-turn. I reluctantly turn the Porsche into a parking lot.

The officer follows me to a stop, gets off his bike, pulls off his helmet and says: “Your front trunk lid is unlatched.” He then proceeds to admire my lime-green, turbo-look Porsche.

VICTOR C. BROSKI

Costa Mesa

THE REAL ENEMIES?

On your Sept. 19 Letters page, the responses to the Aug. 8 article about falconry (“What the Falconer Knows,” by Stephen Bodio) were predictably polarized. I find such bickering irritating.

Hunters and naturalists, trappers and environmentalists, fishermen and bird-watchers--all need the same thing: wild land, with wild animals and access to them. The enemies are not each other but irresponsible corporations, developers and agribusiness.

DAVID LEWIS

Anaheim

CYBERKID

The computer age has defined the global revolution and has created an environment where the distant worlds of art and science have intersected as one creation (“The Face of Cyber Chaos,” Sept. 12). This computer movement is technology with an attitude--a new culture, a fad, a world within itself. It has transformed ideas into reality and has made the impossible a living joke. I ask you, what cannot be done on computers?

I have a computer. It is my baby at this point in my life (I am 15). I don’t know what I’d do without it. I’ve become part of the growing species classified as cyberpunks. Having a knack for computers, I do virtually everything with them, to the point where they have become part of my life.

In years to come our entire existence will be based on the productivity of computers and other sophisticated appliances. We are already living in the information age, and technology can only get better.

MANOJ KARNANI

Northridge