Letters to the editor for Saturday, Oct. 4, 2014

Pedestrians need to show their intent

The pedestrians of Carson City could help with the ongoing situation of vehicles not yielding to them in crosswalks if they were to simply show their intent to cross the street.

Too many times I have approached an intersection with a pedestrian approaching the street curb only to have them look away from me for an extended period of time and not give any indication of their intent to cross the street. At other times they will walk away from the street a few feet, looking around as if lost, talking on their cell phone and still not giving any indication of their intent.

I have stopped for these individuals, tapped my horn to get their attention, only to have them indicate on some occasions that they do not want to cross.

As a motor vehicle operator I am willing to give the right of way to the pedestrian, but a simple index finger pointing across the street would be helpful to let me know their intent as I and other drivers cannot read their mind.

Bob Thomas

Carson City

There has to be an intelligent designer

Life, our planet, and the universe are truly amazing! Our atmosphere provides us with air to breathe and it protects us from dangerous radiation, absorbing up to 99 percent of ultraviolet rays. Earth’s magnetic field also protects us from harm. This shield protects us from solar winds, solar flares, and explosions from the corona of sun, which blasts billions of tons of matter into space! If we were missing just one of these shields, life would vanish.

One of life’s biggest necessities is liquid water. The abundance of water we have, though, could not exist if the earth were not precisely placed in the solar system, approximately 93 million miles away from the sun.

Imagine this: if the earth were just 5 percent closer to the sun, scorching heat would have ended all our lives; if the earth were just one percent farther away from the sun, a large part of our earth would be covered in thick layers of ice, 20 percent would leave the earth as cold as mars, making it impossible to survive. Now think about our amazing brain! How does it feel, hear, see, and smell? Scientists can’t explain it. Is it only a coincidence that our planet has two dynamic shields? Our location in the solar system and in the universe is just right for a habitable planet. Was it random chance? The complexity of our brain is beyond our understanding. There has to be an intelligent designer behind these wonders!

Daisy Lopez

Carson City