Letters for July 26, 2007

One small victory
What a golden moment in recent history for all of us. Thanks to city, state, council, mayor, foundations, even casinos for owning up to local responsibility and compassion for the homeless community. All ages, languages, colors, conditions, sins, and statuses—we are all one great family of Truckee Meadows put here to embrace and endure, support and sustain one another! Let us rejoice, be proud and hopeful to know the funds are now available to finish this installment of provision for women and children especially!

Let us unite in witness and action in our larger family of state and nation. So long as our economic policies are allowed to divide even further the few with so much more than we need from the many with so much less than we need, and so long as our government is allowed to “protect” these policies and their promoters by running roughshod over the poor of the world, the “losers” among us will come home to roost—while the “winners” will wall up their borders and gate up their neighborhoods.

Rev. John Auer
Reno

Editor’s note: On July 18, the Reno City Council awarded a $12.1 million contract for a family shelter at the Reno Community Assistance Center.

Hmmmm
Re “Special amnesty edicíon” (Ask a Mexican, July 12):

Amnesty! You don’t need no stinkin’ amnesty! With 12 million of you already here and fewer “patriotic Americans” voting for president than for American Idol candidates, all ya gots to do is get busy knockin’ boots.

If each illegal gives birth to eight crumbsnatchers on this side of the border, in 18 years you’ll be able to elect whoever you want, with 96 million newly registered American voters who love you dearly.

American citizenship is overrated anyhow. The Chinese will be kicking American ass wholesale in 20 years (wait till they start selling $7,000 new cars here and run American automakers out of business).

Al Hebert
via e-mail

Ignorant racists
Re “Special amnesty edicíon” (Ask a Mexican, July 12):

I was shocked to read what some ignorant “citizens” had to say about the amnesty issue. I would like to say that I am not Mexican. I am a mixture of many different races, as most people are in the U.S. When we look back through history, we can see many examples of where our government tried to suppress immigration in an effort to allow white Americans to stay employed, or to make sure that immigrants didn’t get the upper hand in business (i.e. the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882). If only America taught its citizens the true, unbiased history of immigration and the colonization of the Unites States. Instead, it continues to breed uneducated, racist people who speak before they have a well-rounded view of the issue at hand.

America benefits from illegal immigration by keeping illegal immigrants at poverty level, while benefiting from their labor, their taxes, and their own ignorance on how to better their living situation in the United States. I pray that in the future, people will be more enlightened. They’ll look out their windows and see more than just “brown people” but human beings who are trying to better their lives for themselves and their children.

Lisa Eckard
Sparks

Love the chickens
Re “Pecking order” (Feature story, July 19):

A fine piece on urban chickens. We’ve been considering this for some time, and it looks like it’s time.

Aside from lowering our ‘food mileage,’ and thus staying peak oil and climate change for just a tiny bit, this venture gives us healthier foods, helps eliminate factory egg farms and cruel conditions, and perhaps will get us away from that infernal TV tube for a few extra minutes a day, and other as yet undiscovered benefits. Urban chickens may put some serious fear into the corporate world.

This ranks right up with fighting for clotheslines in housing associations, requiring solar water heaters in new housing, gardening, planting fruit trees, experimenting with solar air heaters and parabolics, using electric bicycles, and fixing our stoplights.

Damned fine job. Kind of gives me hope.

Craig Bergland
Reno

Stop the war. Now.
Re “Summer of discontent” (News story, July 19):

It is obvious the Iraq War has continuously become a failed effort. The war itself has created more terrorism than it has defeated. It has enhanced the problem it was intended to solve.

It is time to accept this fact, get out of Iraq, and move on. The vast majority of Americans are not being represented on this issue even though polling shows they are opposed to the war in Iraq but still, it continues on with the help of reckless and out-of-touch congressional and senatorial representatives who are still supporting this unnecessary and abysmal war.

We need to let our representatives know that we are ready to get out of Iraq now, and we can start with our own U.S. Rep. Dean Heller. We need to let him know that Nevadans will not tolerate his reckless support for this war. We have to let him know that we will not support him if he chooses to blindly follow the president’s failed policies in Iraq. Since he has been elected, he has continuously voted to support the war in Iraq and it is time to tell him no.

Tom Mullin
Reno