Letters to the editor

With technology rapidly emerging as an integral part of many young teenage lives, has it come to the point where it is an issue in schools?

Many would say yes, especially teachers who have to take a back seat to the endless sea of iPods and cell phones that teenagers seem to be conjoined to.

Cell phones and iPods are a problem in schools, a problem that affects not only the teachers, but students trying to learn in a disruptive environment. Teachers not only become frustrated with constant text messaging and the ringing of cell phones in class, but this is in addition to the stress already placed on them by dealing with the occasional uncooperative attitude of students.

Cell phones are not the only means of disruption; iPods have made teaching an odyssey when students prefer to listen to these devices rather than to the lectures.

A possible solution would be to eliminate the use of these devices by banning them from schools.

This in turn, would not only diminish a disruptive atmosphere in schools, but make teachers' lives much easier.

Students would benefit by focusing on the job at hand: learning. Schools would once again become a place where students come to learn and focus, and not be distracted by their electronic devices.

EMILCE ALVAREZ

Carson City

Reader doesn't view Manzanar as a mistake

Ahhh, ye bleeding hearts! The column Dec. 26 by Lorie Schaefer, me-thinks she should not rewrite or misquote history, when she writes "Don't Repeat the Manzanar Mistake."

At the time of "Manzanar" I lived at Lone Pine, two years later moving to Bishop, where I lived for 40 years. Yes, there were guards in the towers, except there were not eight guard towers as you have said.

There were only two, one on either side of 395 at the gate. Remember, this was war time. You do remember Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese? Well, you really exasperate me, because these people had doctors sent in from outside, they had food sent in, and were treated as human beings.

Compared to Auschwitz and Dachau and Treblinka? Do you remember seeing photos of those starving Jews when the Americans found them. They were skin and bones, practically naked?

Did you see or hear of any such thing at Manzanar? No, because there was no such thing!

No, if you really are interested, you might stop in at the museum at Independence. There are quite a few photos taken at the time of that era, of Manzanar.

You also said "they lost everything," well, dear woman, they didn't lose their lives, as some did at Pearl Harbor, or how about the "Bataan March?" and other atrocities? You were correct when you said "Feelings were running high." President Roosevelt was very wise when he had these people "put behind barbed wire" and guarded for their own safety, or else "there would have been blood in the streets."

For the record, I went to school with Japanese and one in particular; he and I corresponded for 30 years. He joined the Japanese squadron, the ones who went to Italy. Need I say more?

I have no idea why you even brought up with the subject of the "detainees," as you call them, at Guantanamo, when in reality they are "terrorists."

And you invariably forget we are at war, again. Prisoners have no rights. Just ask Sen. John McCain. Are you sure you know who he is? Just the facts, Ma'am.

RHEBA MONTROSE

Carson City

Don't discount people who've moved here from other states

Is there the slimmest chance that someone from another neighborhood or even another state may have an experience worth sharing? It is really sad when some people are so closed minded that they will not listen to experience or learn from history.

Nevada is a state that offers a freedom that many other states do not have. Freedom is a mentality and a way of life; most of us from other states are appreciative. This is one of the reasons we are here.

There are a few of us that have a wee bit of political experience in other places. True not all of it has been successful. But "carpetbaggers" is a little off the mark. We want to share and protect.

JOE EIBEN

Carson City