Letters for November 15, 2012

Support Israel

Israeli citizens have been and are being continually attacked by Hamas militants.

Israel’s military has been patient, and yet Arab militants still fire rockets into Israel.

Israel has every right to protect herself and her citizens from these attacks, and when Israel does defend herself and her citizens, it should be reported as such: Israel is defending her citizens against unprovoked attacks by Arab militants who want to destroy Israel.

The Arab militants should be condemned—not Israel!

The international community should revise all funding of Hamas, money should not be allowed to funnel to the militant Hamas for weapons and rockets. The international community should start questioning Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran about why their EU money is being spent to buy weapons, instead of developing the infrastructure necessary for trade and civilian prosperity.

Until the Arabs in Gaza and the rest of the world recognize Israel’s national existence, there should be no consideration of an additional Arab state in the region.

I do not understand why nothing about Israel appears in our local news that actually reflects an accurate viewpoint of the current events happening on the ground in Israel.

Jonathon Levy
Reno

Mandate this

Republicans are now claiming that this election didn’t really mean anything because, I guess, they didn’t get their fannies kicked hard enough. Yeah, they kept the House, but they lost seats and would have lost even more had it not been for creative redistricting and lots and lots of money. And if we’re not buying that, they’ll claim that somehow Obama’s victory is a clear signal that Obama had better start cooperating with Republicans, and not the other way around. Y’all may want to believe that a sweep of the so-called swing states coupled with winning the popular vote is not a mandate. Fine, call it what you will, but you had better recognize this election at a minimum as a definite shot across the bow. If you want to completely lose the House and everything else, keep playing your numbers games, spinning yourselves into pretzels, and clinging to your denials of all that is real. Republicans have demonstrated a consistent unwillingness to govern and there are simply too many things that need to get done. Two years isn’t that far off and if necessary, our side will relish another opportunity to redefine the word “mandate” for you.

Michel Rottmann
Virginia City Highlands

The judges were wrong or lied

Re “95 word fiction” (Feature story, Nov. 8):

You, the reader, could easily consult the most avid fiction fans you know—the more avid the better, and the larger the sampling, the better—[to determine] which of these stories hold the most merit, whether in traditional parameters, or merely the ones declared explicitly by RN&R.

In light of the glaring incongruity between the stated criteria of the contest, and the “emperor’s new clothes” style results of the alleged selection process, the reader may at the very least surmise there was considerably more reliance upon darts and blindfolds than is typically summoned for such decisions.

The opening statement to the article claimed there was a much more elaborate process involved, and while I personally am not about to reveal whether or not I was fooled by that claim, the very fact that the contest administrators chose to view the selections through that lens, bears rather obvious semantic weight. The medium is the message, and these results are primarily an open invitation to the reader to wonder about what formal process (if any) really did transpire.

Flombaye Krishnabob Ellison
Sacramento

Miss the artist

Re “Wayne Burke 1974-2012” (Upfront, Nov. 8):

We have one of Wayne’s paintings at our home. He liked the hats I knitted, so we made a trade. I created a customized hat of the colors he liked, and he gave us one of his awesome paintings. The native warrior’s eyes follows us. There is this slight sad smile on his face and strong colors of the clothing he wears.

We will miss Wayne terribly.

Karen Ingraham
Sutcliffe

It’s all good

Well, it’s been a fine week.

To supplement and enhance that, I am writing to Sen. Heller and Rep. Amodei, to urge them to work with President Obama, and to stop being obstructionist. We have too many problems to solve to allow them to continue to be partisan. Heller won by a sliver, and he must hear our voices so that he can transcend “partyism” and help move us forward.

We need to develop solar energy, cut unnecessary defense, stop the abuses of the TSA, and end outsourcing of essential services to for-profit-only corporate interests.

I want my Obamacare, and the assurance that my Social Security will not be given to Wall Street to porcinely profit from. We need FEMA, food stamps for the hungry and jobless, and an end to banking abuses and usurious interest rates and fees. The people want medical marijuana, and even legalizing of industrial hemp and smokable pot in some states. Let’s stop pot from being a class 1 narcotic, and start to fight the real war on drugs instead of the insane one.

We need a postal system without punitive constraints.

We need a lot of stuff.

It’s time for our Congress to climb out of the dark ages, and work toward our good rather than special interests.

Please, won’t you write them also?

You know you want to, and it will be a good thing.

Craig Bergland
Reno

Those rascals

Re “Do it straight” (Notes from the Neon Babylon, Oct. 25):

Hurray! At last, a point-by-point view of what has been done for Americans and America is the last three-plus years despite a stubborn effort by those rascals who call themselves Republican. A Republican is a man who should stand for the Republic, and this bunch of guys has done everything but that. I’m 80 years old, and I have never seen such disrespect for the presidency (except maybe a little during the first months of Truman’s terms). One thing missing above is the new respect and cooperation we are getting from—for the most part—leaders of the other major countries of the world. We’ll stick with Isreal because we know how dire their country is but, gee, I wish they would stop poking the tigers with a stick. Four more years of Obama will surely mean a tremendous bonus to our country. We need Obama’s calm strength and leadership.

Marjorie Fowler
Copperopolis, Calif.

That hurts

Re “America: What went wrong, and how do we fix it?” (Feature story, Nov. 1):

Bob Fulkerson has it spot on. Nevada? No, it’s Neva-DUH!

Chris Longstaff
San Francisco