Letters for March 25, 2004

There is still no exit strategy, we haven’t caught Bin Laden, and the goodwill of the world following the 9/11 attacks has been squandered. Terrorist organizations are going to be replaying “Bring it on” in recruitment tapes for years to come.

With respect to Iraq, the Bush administration has shown a complete lack of leadership, statesmanship and planning. Bush led citizens to believe Iraq posed an imminent threat, but this has turned out to be false. Bush told us about stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, and we’ve found none.

If I were in charge of a big company and made so many miscalculations and tragic missteps, my board of directors would surely take me to task. We should hold Bush accountable.

Zeny M. Ocean
Reno

Rock of ages
Re “Protecting ancient rock art” [RN&R, Cover story, March 4]:

Part of our school took a trip out to the Grimes Point Archaeological Site during the month of January. What we learned there is that we, as a society, really don’t know much. In fact, we know so little that some of us think the petroglyphs deserve a little vandalism.

For the month of Intersession (month-long classes of enrichment and remediation in between semesters) the fine arts classes worked on a few collaborations. The drama class wrote and performed a play portraying average people visiting our history and how they might realistically act to things they don’t know much about or aren’t used to. The poetry class expressed thoughts about the experience of being at Grimes Point. And the photography class displayed their photographs of the rock art.

With the help of two Nevada State Arts Council artists-in-residence, Daryl Chin, bookmaker, and Pat Mendoza, storyteller, we were able to communicate our feelings upon our vanishing history.

Grimes Point is such a beautiful place. I think we all felt something out there. Yet at the same time, we were a bit disturbed that anyone could want to destroy it. It was good to read your article and hear that there are citizens trying to preserve our history; but sad to hear there are still so many indifferent people.

Breanna Prince
Virginia City

Who wants to get married, anyway?
Re “Rethinking marriage” [RN&R, Cover story, Feb. 12]:

When it comes to finding any long-term relationships in Reno, you would have better luck finding a needle in a haystack. The people here are narrow and simple-minded, living in a transient town. A lot of the men in this area are low-caliber. The same is true for the women, who have had to lower their standards. So put it together, Reno is a place that does not have the maturity for real human interactions. This is referring to finding a decent relationship, let alone, “marriage.”

Many people look at marriage as a joke and only as a business deal. Marriage is more complex and has gotten too political for my taste.

I am thankful I am relocating to a real windy city. The older I have gotten, the less concerned I am about marriage. Why is it always about men? I am tired.

Wendy Fisk
Sparks

Whoop-ti-do! Let’s tell some lies!
Boy howdy, we got us an election year! Time to hop on the old hyperbole express. You say it’s going to the moon? Hell, it’s going all the way to Mars!

Too bad it’s all baloney.

George W. Bush’s proposal to re-conquer the final frontier, put a permanent outpost on the moon and a human presence on Mars, will cost hundreds of billions of dollars or more. With an administration running deficits as far in the future as the economists can calculate, where is that money going to come from? This is just an election year flag-waving ploy. Its purpose is to divert attention from real issues like the fact that our brave and potent military is stationed abroad to protect corporate interests overseas. We ran off the Taliban and the Baathists for the benefit of the profiteers at Haliburton and the pipeline artists at Unocal.

But, hey, enjoy that credit on your income tax. Plus, you still pay payroll and Social Security taxes. Look at your W-2’s. Also, with revenue to the states being slashed, you pay higher sales and property taxes. And if you make too little, those “lucky duckies” below the poverty line, you don’t get a tax credit at all.

Do yourself a favor and don’t swallow the Bush administration’s placebos. They won’t cure what ails you.

Neil Fager
Reno