IMMIGRANTS AND TUBERCULOSIS

In Sheryl Stolberg’s “A Breath Away” (Oct. 24), she states that 66% of tuberculosis cases “occur in immigrants.” It seems to me that an easy solution to the TB problem would be to carefully examine legal immigrants upon their arrival, a procedure used with great success in earlier years at Ellis Island.

The deportation of the thousands of illegal aliens who continue to flood Los Angeles would also do wonders in the fight against the spread of infectious diseases.

JEFFREY A. HARTWICK

Riverside

Social stigma is attached to the TB-afflicted in many Third World countries, according to medical writer Michael Gibbons in an article, “Social Stigmas Keep Sick From Clinics,” in Advance for Respiratory Care Practitioners magazine. “Mexicans who suspect they have TB typically delay seeking treatment,” Gibbons says, “fighting an inner battle of denial. And with good reason: Entrenched cultural biases make people with TB outcasts, even from their own families.” The delay among Orange County undocumented workers is said to average nine months from the onset of symptoms.

SHERRY BARNES

Pomona

THE YELTSIN DEFENSE

Boris Yeltsin is not responsible for all the ills in Russia today (“Boris the Blunderer,” by John-Thor Dahlburg, Oct. 24). The Communist-dominated legislature led by Vice President Alexander V. Rutskoi played a large part in the current political and economic stagnation. Yeltsin had no choice but to dissolve it and order new elections.

In the recent rebellion, the Marxist-led mob came close to seizing control of Moscow, the state-operated national TV network and perhaps the whole nation. Only someone with Yeltsin’s stature, political know-how and charisma could motivate the Russian Army to halt the chaos and restore order. If Russia is to move toward democracy in the next decade, that progress will be led by Boris Yeltsin.

TERRANCE DOYLE

Gardena

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I am in the telecommunications business in Moscow, and during the conflict of Oct. 3-4, I was in the middle of it all.

To cast Rutskoi, Supreme Soviet Chairman Ruslan I. Khasbulatov and the other handful of instigators of that bloody coup as spurned supporters of Yeltsin is to not understand the makeup of those men or the extremes to which they were willing to go to achieve power and control. At a moment when compromises could have been worked out, Rutskoi’s ego apparently took over. He ordered armed revolt, and hundreds died.

For days I went to work past armed guards who had orders not to shoot. I was on the steps of the Moscow mayor’s building when attackers drove the trucks through the glass doors. They were crazed, drunken thugs, incited to cause death and destruction by their leadership. They had not a hint of political purpose, not a speck of patriotism, not a clue as to why they were even there--except that they were paid 30,000 rubles ($30).

Too often the press seems to rub the faces of the victors in the mud. To be sure, Yeltsin has made many mistakes and will undoubtedly make more. Yeltsin may not be many things, but to have survived this long in Russian politics, he indeed has to be one hell of a politician.

FREDERICK R. ANDRESEN

Corona del Mar

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Illustrator Tim Gabor is not only a great caricaturist but a skilled plastic surgeon as well. I note that in his caricature of Yeltsin, Gabor has reattached the left thumb that Yeltsin lost in World War II.

WAYNE WILLIAMS

Laguna Niguel

TAKES ONE TO SELL ONE

Apparently, these camps for sales personnel (“Weekend at Camp Sell-a-Lot,” by Steve Salerno, Oct. 24) claim to increase sales without, by their own admission, teaching them anything about selling. All they do is put the students through a series of potentially dangerous outdoor experiences, even if the students have to be forced to comply. From what I gather, nobody, not even the owners of the schools, know how or whether they work. But major corporations are so eager to improve performance that they’ll try anything. It all goes to prove an old adage: There’s no easier mark for a salesman than another salesman.

JOSEPH ZEFF

North Hollywood

A PLEA FOR HOME COOKIN’

I checked the cover just to be sure. Yep, it’s still the Los Angeles Times Magazine. So why all the faraway restaurant reviews?

Just when I thought that the reviews would be worth reading now that Ruth Reichl has left, I realized that I’d have to travel a bit to test the new reviewer’s acumen. Hey, why stop at California? I’m sure there are plenty of decent restaurants in New York. Maybe even Paris.

Please give me something I can feast on in our home territory, and don’t tell me that Los Angeles doesn’t have enough restaurants of its own.

GREGORY S. MOSSMAN

Los Angeles

Editor’s note: As in the past, most of the restaurants we review will be in the metropolitan area. But we also intend to roam farther afield once in a while, on the general theory that travel is broadening and enjoyable. Next stop, Eureka?

NO CROSS WORDS

I enjoy the Sunday puzzles, as do many of my breakfast buddies. It’s great fun for us crossword buffs to leak a key word to a colleague, over the phone or at breakfast. Here in Fallbrook, we even have a local telephone network for people who, by Wednesday, have not solved the Sunday magazine’s puzzles.

Keep it up Barry Tunick and Sylvia Bursztyn (even your names are challenging). Your creative skills are much appreciated.

EDGAR A. ORDWAY

Fallbrook

PALM ATTITUDES

I object to Mark Ehrman’s “Dissing Darwin” (Palm Latitudes, Oct. 24), about the Creationist Museum in San Diego County. Most scientists are not “garden-variety atheists.” Neither is the average visitor to a natural history museum, as implied in the article. Some of this century’s most famous scientists have had philosophical/religious beliefs and feelings more profound than those of their critics in literal, dogmatic Christianity, Hinduism, etc.

Scientific creationism proponents borrow superficially from scientific method, which they neither practice nor understand. Most scientists don’t bother to refute such fanatics until something substantial, such as biology textbooks, is threatened.

There is certainly no lack of mystery and awe in what is comprehensible in science. I cannot believe that observable reality and the laws of physics are necessarily in conflict with belief in a Supreme Being.

ARTHUR E. WALSTEAD

Pacoima

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I’d like Jessica Yu to know that in spite of all the confusion she ran into concerning her identity and her film “Sour Death Balls” (“Only Yu,” Palm Latitudes, Oct. 24), there’s at least one person out here who saw her film. It is a funny and extremely imaginative piece of work, and I, for one, will never confuse it with any of the other films she mentioned.

AL GOLDSMITH

Bell

KITH AND KIN

Trip Gabriel’s “Confidence Man,” (Oct. 10) struck me as interesting--and ironic, since I am just about what Harold Jay Kaplan claimed to be. I’m a tennis instructor with the Los Angeles City Recreations and Parks Department, and I am Meyer Lansky’s niece. Lansky married my father’s youngest sister, Anne Citron.

I do wish that the obsessions those wanna-bes have with my uncle would stop. It is very embarrassing to our family, especially to those of us who are honest citizens and hard workers.

SUSAN CITRON

Sylmar