Letters for September 16, 2010

Break the incentive

It truly amazes me how we approach our political problems. Take the immigration issue. No one wants to discuss the real problem or the elephant in the room, so to speak.

As long as you have greedy American employers who hire illegals and recruit them across the border, they will keep coming and coming across the Rio Grande. Motivation? Simple, they hire them for less or about minimum wage, offer no benefits, and have the luxury of exploiting their undocumented status, not to mention denying our citizens who will take any job in hard times. Enforcing and beefing up security along the border is just window dressing. If the federal government is serious, it would simply impose severe fines against employers and threaten to shut them down if they continue to hire illegals.

By the way, folks, this approach to problem solving is called deductive reasoning. Our politicians should try it sometimes.

Bruno Dilonardo
Reno

Time ran out

Mark Twain once said, “All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?” And indeed this is a question as old as the chicken or the egg. It has been repeated almost as often as “will you marry me.”

This week Time magazine asked yet again, but in the nastiest way possible, “Why don’t you Jews just die?” Heralding to the world a revelation, Jews care about money, not peace. No shit. Really?

In that case, let me clue Time in about how we got to the point where we care so much about money! You see, it was some time around the moment when Herr Schindler traded his last watch to save a Jewish life that money became very important to us.

It took a lot of money to bring huge boats of starving refugee children through Cyprus. It took money to bring Russian Jews sick of pogroms and bread lines through Israel to America. It took even more money to rescue 40,000 Ethiopian Jews from starvation. It takes money to start campaigns like “Save Darfur” to stop Hamas from smuggling weapons which kill Sudanese blacks.

Yes. money. Money changes everything. Money means our kids can go to school and learn about peace, or war. Or learn politics, the study of which will reveal that every Jewish effort at peace is met with more anti-Semitism.

Money, to the Jew, is survival. It’s not about the actual dollar or shekel. It is symbolic of freedom. Just as the Uzi is not symbolic of the bullet, or the death, but the protection it offers to the soldier.

And why don’t we just die? It seems after all this time of being called baby eaters and money grubbers that our self esteem would be so low we would kowtow to the will of Muslim radicals who don’t know an iota of one of the oldest religious texts. But our text is about the gift of life. The gifts that G-d has given us. The things that money can buy because someone put a glorious effort into creating with those gifts. And we are chosen to celebrate, through strife, through unending prejudice, through unending holy war. This is our cause celebre, to show the world a way to live in gratitude and protect life and joy of life with every penny.

So, to answer Time simply, we don’t want to die just because our neighbors refuse our existence. And we need that money to keep throwing parties for every day we are still alive.

Thanks, RN&R, for being there to write to; Time wouldn’t care, I’m sure.

Michal Skinner
via email

Type-A DA

Last week at the Washoe County district attorney debate, incumbent Richard Gammick admitted that he isn’t sure he wants to complete a full term and may instead install someone to take his place without an election. Sounds like he plans on pulling a Sarah Palin; getting elected and then not finishing his term. We have elections in this country for a reason, and for an elected official to use them as a tool to install his or her own successor is a big middle finger to the voters. Alaska is glad to be rid of Palin; it’s time for us to get rid of Gammick.

Travis E. Wicks
Reno

Editor’s note: According to the YouTube that shows Gammick’s answer, he said he was uncertain whether he would fill out another term. He did not “admit” that he would not complete that term or that he would arrange a replacement.

Sad story

I currently work for Nevada Department of Transportation on a summer work crew. We mainly landscape along the freeways, and a few times a week we find a sleeping bag or some other “residence” set up along the side of the road. I always try to hide their belongings before someone else sees them because it is the official policy of the department to throw everything away. There have even been instances of homeless persons begging for the work crews not to throw their stuff away. People joke about a time when our supervisor took a pitchfork to a man’s neck because he refused to leave his stuff for them to throw away. Just today there was a bed set up that we found with job classifieds, work boots, toothpaste, and a cooler with food in it. This person was obviously trying to find a job, and they just made jokes as they threw away all of his belongings, no matter how many times I asked them to leave his blankets. Right now we are experiencing a cold snap, and winter is right around the corner, and these people laughed. I cannot possibly sit by idly anymore, so I am writing to you to see what I can do to help these poor people since my boss obviously doesn’t care. Police won’t do anything because NDOT says the homeless are trespassing on state property, even though it is just the side of a road, where nobody can see them. I would appreciate any help you can give me.

Anonymous

Editor’s note: This letter came to us anonymously, and as such, we can’t vouch for its veracity or accuracy. This policy sounds similar to other callous government attempts to clean out the underemployed menace, though, claiming everything from unsanitary conditions to danger to the underemployed, under-sheltered person, and as such, it should be part of the public dialogue.

Second Amendment remedies

I’ll have the AK-47 with the 30-round clip, but hold the night scope. Differences of opinion are great when they are informed, honest differences. But the blather that’s coming from a lot of FOX News watchers is about as misinformed and dishonest as it gets. Yet it’s not just FOX News watchers that are a testament to comfy ignorance. The phenomenon has spread to other mainstream media, as well. Such seepage is not some big conspiracy, either. Primarily to blame is a university system that bankrolls sports but scrimps on academics, while mediocrity becomes some kind of goal for the rest of us. Reasoned debate? Fagedaboutit. There’s much better progress made with name-calling. In the olden days, the minor party in Congress worked with the majority party in Congress. Not any more. The minority party is in bunker mode. It’s their way or the highway—and that’s undemocratic and unrepublican in a democratic republic. If one has looked at history, one sees that when political systems cease to achieve a common goal, the next step for the government (regardless of one’s particular favorite flavor) and the governed is destructive social chaos followed by violence. Fairly cut and dry. So if a well-traveled road of disaster is the one this nation wants to take during the biggest recession in our history, the media should keep up with the sensationalist stories, headlines ending in a question mark (a big no-no in genuine journalism), celebrity “news,” and—most of all—name-calling. The masses are addicted. Maybe then the highest level of education will finally be kindergarten.

Craig Ayres-Sevier
Reno