Letters to the Editor April 23

A couple of poor choices for U.S. Senate

"Reid likes his chances for re-election," reads the headline, and given what we are led to believe about the general tenor of public opinion, the statement simply confirms how out of touch he is.

Of course, the other side of the coin is - with the two candidates in opposition - he may be correct.

Sue Lowden: Absolutely no qualifications for a job that is way over her head.

Tarkanian: I have not yet vetted him to make a determination of his qualifications.

Yes, I do get a reading on political candidates in either party. For example, I was registered into what was the Republican Party almost before John McCain was born, and I wanted no part of him.

Then, along came Obama, and the more that I learned of him, the scarier the picture became, and he is everything that I feared he might be.

Vernon M. Latshaw

Carson City

DARE program protects most valuable assets

The current deep financial cuts that are being made in our sheriff's and fire departments have caused us great concern. We are most uneasy about law enforcement programs and the many outreach projects that have been implemented or backed by Sheriff Furlong and Undersheriff Albertsen.

National Night Out has grown steadily since it began several years ago. Cops & Kids builds friendship between our police force and our children. YADA, Youth Accountability, will be an intervention program designed to help some of our youth keep themselves out of serious trouble.

Our most cherished concern is DARE. These programs are aimed at our most valuable assets, our children. Sheriff Furlong stated that he wanted every child to know at least one officer by his or her first name.

Officer Davis has made it happen through DARE. The largely grant-funded DARE program reaches 600 fifth graders a year. In five years, 3,000 children (have come to) know Officer Lisa. These children learn of the dangers of drugs, tobacco, gangs and the need to learn how to make careful, safe and reasoned decisions about their own lives.

We must keep these programs going. The world is getting to be a very complicated place. These children will be running the world when we are little old ladies and gents.

Virginia Reimold and Carol Buder

Carson City Emblem Club No. 507

Permissive society killing our young people

The pot-smoker teenager article gave me a heart-wrenching ache. These kids are doing what my generation was taught to do. Pot isn't new. It isn't free either. You either buy it or steal it from your folks at home.

I know, because I stole my dad's Lucky Strikes at 14 years of age. I was hooked on Day One. I spent enough money on cigarettes all my life to have paid for several apartment complexes.

At age 61, I was told I was dying of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease from smoking, and would die if I didn't quit. So I went to the Cancer Society smoker's clinic for four weeks and went through 30 days of sheer hell. What I got from the exercise of my will to live was these 32 more years of being on this planet.

This is really about the culture that this country has allowed to become the norm over generations of misuse of the term "freedom." This is not freedom. This is ignorance and abuse of our precious young people by our adult neglect and example. The finest years of my life I owe to having had the guts to quit my addiction.

Nikki Campbell

Carson City

Now it's my turn: America: Love it or leave it

"Love it or leave it!" Remember that one? I do. For 40 years now, from Tricky Dick (yes, I am a crook) Nixon, Ronald (Iran-Contra) Reagan, George (never met a Saudi I didn't like) Bush I, and George (bring 'em on) Bush II, that slogan has stuck in my craw.

(These were) self-designated super-patriots telling me to leave my country if I didn't like it. Never mind that they never got it, they never understood that I and my ilk loved our country and the Constitution that made it great; they never understood that we just didn't like the crooks and bums that were running the show. And, instead of leaving, we would just protest like mad and work to vote those bums out.

There is so much hatred - hate the government, hate the liberals, the unions, the immigrants, the taxes, the non-Christians, the media, you name it.

I know we've come too far as a civilized nation to say that it's all because a black man is in the White House. So I'm going to guess that this strange phenomenon of un-Christian hatred for our government was caused by a purposeful effort of mass propaganda/mass hysteria launched by the lunatic right wing fringe towards their gullible flock of believers. Ooh ... that sounds good.

And so does this: The United States of America - love it or leave it!

Rick Van Alfen

Carson City