Letters for May 10, 2018

Finance letter

Re “Campaign finance in a gilded age” (Left Foot Forward, April 26):

I appreciate your commentary about campaign finance. My solution, which unfortunately will never be implemented, is a constitutional amendment simply prohibiting any donations of money, property or services to a candidate for national office by anyone or any entity who CANNOT vote for the candidate. I suggest that such a constitutional amendment would return the power to voters and end the practices described in your article.

Donald Schreiber

Incline Village

Party line letter

Re “GOP decay revives party line votes” (Left Foot Forward, May 3):

Ms. Leslie, as much as I usually respect your opinion on most subjects, I feel that you have fallen a bit short on your actions for this election cycle. It's not just the Republican agenda that is a threat to our country. The established course of the Democratic Party is just as scary for our future. The philosophy of “Any Blue Will Do” can be just as devastating.

Granted, until we can get rid of the strict monopoly of the two-party system, that creates their own rules, we will be stuck with the one percent buying our government. Please, do everything in your power to vote progressive. And not just by name, but by previous actions.

Michael McArthur

Reno

Secret letter

Re “The secret history of Reno” (cover story, April 26):

While I applaud the thoughtfulness of “The Secret History of Reno” two groups were notably absent from the article—women and LGBTQ. Quite an oversight, and to be ignored is itself a form of discrimination. Dennis McBride has written a history of LGBTQ discrimination in Nevada, called Out of the Neon Closet. This is a definitive work on the subject of homophobia in Nevada and the culmination of years of gathering an archive of printed evidence of homophobia at the highest levels of society.

Thomas Mullin

Reno

Editor's note: We ran a cover story about Dennis McBride's book last year (“Hidden history,” Feb. 16, 2017) as well as another cover story that was an excerpt from his book (“Stripped rights,” July 13, 2017). However, one of the problems involved in reporting the history of that once-closeted group is a lack of archives and recorded history. For that reason and reasons of space, we cannot always be as thorough as we would like.

Aggressive letter

Due to present and/or future plans of present and/or future rogue nations and/or terrorists, it is not only the United States who needs reality-tested ever-evolving defenses against ever-evolving nuclear missile threats.

Any steps we are taking against germ or chemical attack, and—last but not least—EMP-hardening and GPS-backup technology, we also need to share these things with India and other non-rogue non-communist nations, in case present and/or future rogue nations and/or terrorists may have plans for world conquest.

Alex Sokolow

Santa Monica

Letter letter

Re “Perky little letter” (letters, April 26):

Well, editors, I, too, occasionally enjoy a good “compass” letter—you know, one that seems to point in every damn direction except the one the author was headed in. Or, were you just listening in and figured you had to demonstrate the proper utilization of a “RANT room”?

Ps. Whoa—hang on a second here. You had something left over from April 1 you just had to get into print, din'ja? Lettin' your ego write the rent check again, huh?

Magneta-phorically speaking,

Marc Hogue

Washoe Valley