Letters to the editor 5-1

Time to step back

and remember our past

Currently, we are fighting a war in Iraq, helping build a democracy in the Middle East. I have heard plenty of people, from the news networks down to the average Joe, complain about how long it is taking for Iraq to settle down.

While this attitude is understandable in the age of lightning-quick communication, travel and food, it is a good idea to look back and see how long it took us to become a solid nation.

For example, in 1776 we declared our independence from Britain. America went to war until 1783, when the Treaty of Paris was signed. That only was the beginning. Shay's Rebellion (1786) nearly overthrew the new government, and the economy was in a state of desperation. Things got better as the Constitution and Bill of Rights was signed in 1789, and then the War of 1812 broke out as Britain tried to take over again. The Civil War coming along, tearing the entire nation of the United States in two, almost 100 years after it had become its own country.

As Iraq now fights for its tenuous hold on its brand-new democracy, I think that it is fair to take a step back and remember that the United States has been around 233 years and we still have problems. Iraq is still going to have problems but they are fighting for the same thing we did 233 years ago.

GRACE STRACHAN

Carson City

State courts largely ignore

volunteer advocate mandate

SB 292 changes the current law which says that courts shall appoint volunteers to one which says courts shall appoint attorneys and may appoint volunteers.

For many years Nevada Law (NRS 432b) has said that courts must appoint volunteers and the courts have largely ignored it. Now, in these tough economic times, our legislators want to change the law so that it is more expensive to meet the needs of kids in care. If our legislators are concerned that less than half of the kids in state care in Nevada have advocates appointed for them, and they should be, then they ought to enforce the current law.

Volunteer advocates (guardians ad litem, court-appointed special advocates) have a proven track record for helping kids. For free, they act as the right arm of the courts, getting to know the kids, spending time with them, finding things out and advocating in the court, with state agencies, with schools, etc. These volunteers go far beyond what paid attorneys do.

As a child advocate I have no problem with the state mandating that kids in care have attorneys, too, as a taxpayer I do. Currently, if anyone suggests to a judge that a kid in care needs an attorney, they get one appointed to them. Not so with GALs. Nobody is enforcing our current law. Most kids in care have neither an attorney or a GAL. What the Legislature ought to be addressing right now is enforcing current law. Check out www.gals4nvfosterkids.

cfsites.org

STEVE SWARTZ

Carson City

Why so late to the party?

On a day that Major League Baseball celebrated and honored the legacy of Jackie Robinson, an incredible American whose courage and impact on American History cannot be underscored, a national phenomenon occurred that was quite disturbing. Thousands of Dittoheads and followers of an ideology bordering on xenophobia demonstrated against only their god knows what.

The original Tea Party in 1773 was about "Taxation Without Representation."

Don't we live in a Democratic republic where all eligible voters elect their own representatives? And the American public emphatically said last November that they wished to be represented differently from the incumbent crooks, cronies and torturers.

So my question is, why so late to this "Tea Party?" Where were your demonstrations when Bush took "Big Government" from a surplus to a trillion-dollar deficit, when he lied us into a needless and costly war, or when he collaborated with American companies to spy on Americans?

And now this talk of states' rights and secession? Near treasonous rhetoric that only fans the flames of future Tim McVeighs and James Earl Rays. Many of us remember the states' rights days of "separate but equal" and "colored only." The days before Jackie Robinson and, certainly, no Barrack Obama. Someone tell me that isn't what this is all about.

Oh, and quit calling "Big Government" every time a pesky fire, flood, tornado or hurricane comes your way. The states can handle it.

RICK VAN ALFEN

Carson City

92-year-old describes

fight to overcome smoking

Smoking is the most difficult addiction to overcome; the most expensive for our government to be saddled with due to the medical costs and the least understood of all addictions I know.

I'm an ex-smoker. I'm alive at 92 years of age because I finally went to the Cancer Society "Stop Smoking" class at Kaiser Hospital at age 61. I have lived ever since with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. What that means is anything infectious that attacks my lungs hits me worse because they have so little ability to do their task.

I watched my beautiful 31-year-old fashion model aunt die a tormented death of throat cancer from cigarettes. I started smoking at age 14. (I smoked "Luckys," stolen from my father's packs left within my reach.)

I once sat down and figured out how much in dollars I had spent on cigarettes all my life. It was enough, if invested in mutual funds, to have kept me luxuriously on my own yacht forever.

One of our stop-smoking members, a young man named Peter Paul, told us he was a drug addict, an alcoholic and a smoker. He said he stopped all the rest by himself but he needed help with nicotine. I don't give a darn about mining reform, but I do care and will fight tooth and nail to protect us from nicotine poison.

NIKKI CAMPBELL

Carson City