Letters for December 26, 2002

Right on, Buddy [R. Morton].

It’s time for us to declare open season on these damned Californians who come over here and want to change everything. We could have a sport shoot once a month and pay a bounty of $5-10 dollars a head. A bounty would be cheaper than building houses and maintaining municipal programs for them.

Many of us came over from Communistornia, 30 years ago for me, because we watched our state being invaded by people who didn’t understand its history and resources and wanted to change everything. They won and came in uncontrollable droves. We were forced to flee. Many came to Nevada for the same reason and live here peacefully. To those who complain and want to change the way we live, please send me your address. I will personally send you a one-way bus ticket back to “The Gestapo State.”

James Kadokan
Reno

Transplant comments
Re “California carpetbagger” [RN&R, letters, Dec. 12]:

This is a response to the extremist harangue of Buddy R. Morton, who by action and word is working to maintain the unacceptable risk of lethal gunfire above northwest Reno homes, schools and other community facilities near Peavine.

Three hundred fifteen people signed a petition to ban firearm use on the Peavine south slope above northwest Reno. Morton’s use of the Second Amendment as a shield to continue the practice of shooting “hundreds of thousands” of rounds of ammunition on Peavine above and within range of thousands of northwest Reno homes, schools and other community facilities represents a disregard for the safety of others.

Moreover, this recklessness will be magnified by increased residential development. The current number of Peavine shooters within hundreds of feet of northwest Reno homes is nothing short of incredible.

As for Morton using the First Amendment as a shield for posting notices that threaten, encourage and incite violence against me, I am ready to sign a criminal complaint against any person for posting such notices, followed by a civil action for relief.

Regarding the “thousands … who take garbage sacks and clean up after the slobs,” Peavine Mountain could use such a cleanup of the alcohol containers and the bullet-riddled vehicles that have been left to rot on the south flank.

James W. Calkins
via e-mail

Repetitive history
For the last few decades, Americans of European descent have become more like American Indians with their awakened consciousness about the environment; their love of travel with the seasons; appreciation of the sun’s force; focus on family values; use of natural medicines and understanding of sustainable economies.

On Sept. 11, the entire nation experienced what it was like to have a strange, foreign power with different cultural values attack the center of our village. The nation has experienced what it is to exist daily but to never know what will happen next, to have trade patterns interrupted or totally destroyed, to have its economy weakened or destroyed—to experience the terrorism of insecurity.

And now smallpox.

“Those that do not know their own history are doomed to repeat it,” wrote George Santayana.

To understand what is really happening to themselves, Americans should actively re-examine United States-tribal relations, historical and current. Side issues of empire and colonialism will illuminate the steps that must be taken to fulfill the challenge of a world power exercising leadership as well as humanism—a goal never realized nor sustained during the course of recorded history. Welcome to the res.

Shayne Del Cohen
via e-mail

Yeah, why is that?
Why can the Bush administration track and stop a ship in the middle of the Indian Ocean knowing it was carrying Scud missiles but a few weeks ago it couldn’t detect a ship from Haiti until the passengers were running across a Florida freeway?

Dewey Quong
via e-mail

Losers have a right to their opinion
Trent Lott has done nothing wrong. Everyone (including Lott) is entitled to his or her own opinion—even if it offends another person or group. This is a fundamental right that is being destroyed by some over sensitive people and special interest groups. Aside from Trent Lott, please help preserve the fundamental right to give an opinion without being attacked.

Ron Cole
Rancho Cordova, Calif.