Letters for October 13, 2005

Road kill
Re “Road to ruin?” (Editorial, Oct. 6):

As we head into fall, Reno and Sparks residents are still having to face the everyday obstacle of commuting around town. Construction projects all over the Truckee Meadows make driving a frustrating experience, at best.

I would like to know who is responsible for seeing that these construction projects are completed in a timely manner. I am a senior at UNR, and the construction on Interstate 80 has been impeding traffic since I first came to Reno as a freshman. I remember driving around Reno for the first time and thinking that there was construction everywhere, which made driving chaotic and confusing. I don’t understand why it takes four years to complete a highway construction project. Where are our tax dollars going? I don’t see them at work on our roads.

The roads seem much more accident prone when there is construction interfering with traffic flow. I would like to see some information on the differences in the amount of car accidents before and during construction.

I would appreciate it if the RN&R would pry more deeply into this issue and provide the Truckee Meadows’ citizens with more information on this subject.

Noelle White
Reno

Business is incompetent, too
“The school district should learn from business,” (Right Hook, Sept. 29):

It always amuses me when people on the right advise us that government should be run more like businesses. They don’t seem to have the same experiences I have. Recently, I opened an account at a local bank; the account was identical to an account opened in another bank in a nearby city. The out-of-town bank performed the service in 15 minutes; the in-city bank took hours and called me back to the bank two times to correct errors they had made. Last week, I paid good money for a fried chicken dinner at a local restaurant, and the chicken was not fit for human consumption.

I wonder if these persons are remembering the greed and dishonesty of Enron and World Com executives. The business community is not without greed, dishonesty and incompetence. There are competent and incompetent people in both the public and private sectors.

L. George Smith
Reno

Sex can make babies
“Prevent pregnancy, prevent abortion,” (News, Sept. 15):

Sen. Reid is either ignorant of the function of the pregnancy-preventing pill, or he assumes everyone else is, or, if they are aware of its functions, he hopes to convince them otherwise. Does that sound like “the moon is made of blue cheese?”

The “morning after” pill, RU 486, is an abortificent which prevents a possibly fertilized egg (a conceived human life) from attaching to the uterine wall, and thus, it is ejected from the womb, killing it!

What is so hard to understand about abortion and unwanted pregnancies? It’s as simple as A-B-C!

If you want to fly somewhere, you take a plane. If you don’t like to fly because you might get air sick, you don’t board a plane!

If you want to go sailing the great oceans of the world, you board a ship. If you don’t like ships because you get seasick, you don’t board!

If you want a child, you partake in actions (preferably with your spouse) which, perhaps in roughly nine months, will result in the birth of a human child!

If you don’t want a child, you don’t partake in actions which usually will result in a pregnancy, with a spouse or, especially, with any Tom, Dick, Harry or any other named person!

With every action there is a result. If one doesn’t want the result, don’t commit the act!

Mary Santomauro
Stagecoach

Hysterical rhetoric
“The new feminists,” (Cover story, Sept. 29):

In Deidre Pike’s “The New Feminists,” Jennifer Ring is quoted as saying “we’re living in the most repressive political environment” she can remember. Ring must know something that I don’t, but this must be because she is something of an expert, being a political science professor at UNR.

According to the dictionary, the word “repress” carries two meanings. The first meaning of “repress” is to “restrain,” “suppress” or “quell.” A second meaning of “repress” comes from psychology, referring to the psychological defense mechanism of a person forcing unpleasant or painful memories, impulses, desires or fears into her subconscious mind.

Assuming that Ring had in mind the first meaning of “repress,” one must ask exactly how she has been “restrained,” suppressed” or “quelled.” Specifically, what and which freedoms have Americans lost in recent years? It certainly can’t be our freedom of speech or of the press, for if it were so, Ring would not be uttering hyperbole bordering on hysteria, nor would her rants of rage be published. The Left, including feminists, are ill-served by poorly-reasoned observations from ostensible experts such as Ring.

Emma Granger
via fax