Anti-Bush, GOP cartoons mindless trash
Well, here we go again. I refer to the political cartoon in the Wednesday, Jan. 14, paper ... seven colors, seven subjects, yet all anti-Bush, anti-Republican, of course. I am sure that you said to yourself, when you bought it from some clown in Arizona,
"Very timely, pithy, 'right on,' etc." It is similar to some of your other recent ones insulting all gun owners and chastising Vice President Cheney. However, I (and all of my friends, some disgruntled former subscribers) find them mindless, vitriolic and totally without any saving grace; journalistic, politically, or otherwise. I am tired of having my breakfast literally ruined by looking at this trash (polite word).
Are you aware that there are 19.8 percent more registered Republican voters than Democratic voters in Carson City? I suspect that the ratio is even higher among your subscribers. Do you care? Were it not for the minimum amount of local news that you provide, I, too, would unsubscribe ... and I am verging on that.
Why it is that we must endure this treatment from "our" local paper?
GLENN TIERNEY
Carson City
Holidays are over,lights should go off
Driving down Carson Street before 7 this morning, I was surprised to see that the holiday lights were still on in downtown Carson. They're very pretty, but in this time of layoffs, budget cuts and belt-tightening, it seems wasteful to be using extra energy into mid-January.
I very much enjoyed them between Thanksgiving and New Year's, but longer than that, to me, seems unnecessary.
D. SCARLETT
Carson City
Cigarette tax increase raises several questions
An article in the Jan. 15 Nevada Appeal reports that the House passed a bill to increase the federal excise tax on cigarettes by $0.61 per pack to expand the state Children's Health Insurance Program.
When most proponents of tobacco taxes base their arguments on rising health-care costs due to smoking-related diseases, it baffles me why these funds are never used to offset the cost of these diseases.
I wonder why the health insurance industry hasn't demanded that these monies be available to them whenever they have to shell out for health services and procedures incurred by smoking-related illness. It is probably because they will get the money anyway through the SCHIP.
I guess it's just another socialist ploy to identify one segment of society that can be exploited to the benefit of some other segment. Those who pay the taxes do not receive any benefit for paying them. What else is new?
DANIEL W. COBB
Carson City
The fox is guarding the henhouse
Dear Mr. Fox,
We, the people of the chicken hatchery, wish to comment on your administration of our hen house. You promised us that when we, on your word, provided 350 billion chickens to alleviate our egg shortage, that it would go a long way to alleviate the problem.
Now we find that you want 350B more chickens and your cousin foxes will monitor egg production.
Somehow I feel you're just going to leave us with egg on our face.
JOE HANUS
Carson City