Jim Rogers' comments about parents right on:
I have been a registered Republican for almost 50 years and I'm almost embarrassed by the apparent ignorance of Assemblyman Ed Goedhart and Nevada Republican Party Chair Sue Lowden. If Jim Rogers owes every caring parent an apology, then there are a lot of parents he doesn't have to worry about.
It is a known fact that the more we ask the government to do for us, the less they do effectively. Years ago we learned to read, do arithmetic and write as in communicate. We had 65 children in a classroom and there was no discipline problem. We had homework every night and that is where our parents molded our education. And we learned, graduated and went on to college.
Today I see young people promoted all the way up to high school who can't read, can't spell, can't make change unless the register tells them how to, and have no social skills whatsoever. And we are sending them to college. Today we have parents who bring on the lawyers for the emotional scar left on their child for a failing grade. So the teachers are between a rock and a hard place. And the solution to the problem is not to throw money at it any more. The solution is still P-A-R-E-N-T-I-N-G, and personal responsibility for our children's education. There are a lot of parents proving every day that this is how it works. Just not the greater percentage of them.
I think Jim Rogers' comments were right on. The politicians' response just proves to me that they don't get it, they can't sell it and they are not interested in solving it. They are only interested in making you afraid of it and telling you who is to blame for it. It's time to quit hiring lawyers and politicians to run the business of our state and hire businessmen and women.
MIKE ENRIGHT
Carson City
Facts left out
of stem-cell story:
The story about FDA approval of an embryonic stem-cell clinical trial had a unifying theme: "Hallelujah! Now the nasty Republicans are out and we can finally get some stem-cell cures for terrible diseases."
Don't you think it would have been important to note that the FDA Web site lists 2,247 non-embryonic stem-cell clinical trials already operating? Why was that fact left out? Perhaps it didn't fit your agenda.
DAVE CAMPBELL
Carson City
When will we say enough is enough?
We are paying $71 billion or more to help fund government health care for illegal immigrants? They need to pay for their own health care. Illegal aliens use our health care system as their free clinic. When are we going to say, "Enough is enough"?
CHARLES SHELDON
Dayton
Here's something you don't see every day:
On Jan. 17, while taking a hike on the east side of Washoe Lake, a dying lake with no inflow or outflow, I noticed some moss-like objects, about three feet from shore, slowly moving to the south on a straight path parallel to the shore.
It was about 2:30 in the afternoon with a bright cloudless sky and the air dead calm. The surface of the water was as flat as glass. I was curious as to how fast the moss was moving so I made two lines in the sand 20 feet apart perpendicular to the shoreline. I measured the time for the object to pass between the lines to be almost exactly two minutes.
There are several forces present everywhere in the world that include gravitational, centrifugal, air pressure, magnetic and coriolis. The first three forces are ruled out because their vectors are vertical, moss is non-magnetic so that leaves the coriolis force as the only logical reason causing the movement. The coriolis force is known for its deflection to the right, clockwise, of objects in flight such as planes, projectiles, winds and, of course, water draining from a bath tub.
Inertia is the property of objects on the earth's surface to normally remain at rest unless a force is applied to cause movement. Apparently, the coriolis force was strong enough to overcome the inertia of the moss. I bring this to the public's attention because, to me, it was weird, awesome and very rare. In over 80 years and visits to over a thousands lakes and pools, such movement was never before observed. I also doubt that anyone in Reno or Carson City has ever seen the same thing.
DONALD W. CUNNINGHAM
Carson City