To the editor:

As a frequent visitor to Las Vegas, I have to wonder why visitors bring kids. I have seen toddlers in strollers in casinos at 3 a.m. and teenagers roaming the Strip late at night, but the most disturbing thing I have seen came last week.

I was at the Aladdin, which hosted the JAMZ National Cheerleading and Dance Championships. I saw hundreds of children running around unescorted in the casino. The saddest thing was most of these kids were probably under the age of 10 and had more makeup than a Las Vegas showgirl. Cheerleader finals should be held at Disney World, not Las Vegas.

I thought there were laws against anyone under the age of 21 being in a casino. I realize to get to the rooms and most restaurants, one needs to walk through the casino, but to have these kids running around was just totally wrong. On numerous occasions I saw mothers stopping at a slot machine to play while their children stood by and watched.

When are the parents going to realize a smoke-filled casino is no place for children? When are the parents going to realize the Strip is no place for unescorted teenagers late at night?

Michael Zielinsky

ALSIP, ILL.

To the editor:

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., and Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., have mirror-image bills before Congress to raise the Federal Aviation Administration's mandatory retirement age for commercial pilots from age 60 to 65. Neither has incremental age changes over a five-year period (Rep. Gibbons' bill of last year had incremental changes). Both present bills tie the retirement age to Social Security, now 65 and increasing to 67 by 2022.

The International Civil Aviation Organization of Montreal, an international aviation rule-harmonizing organization, recently polled its member nations regarding the age 60 rule. Out of 112 responses, more than 80 favored an age over 60. Most preferred age 65.

In your Sunday article, "Retirement issue up in the air," FAA spokeswoman Alison Duquette said, "We have not been assured that raising the age to 65 would maintain the level of safety." The FAA has received such assurances from its own doctors and the National Institutes of Health.

As long as the FAA determines what is assuring, nothing ever will be.

Besides, it never was about safety. It's the economics, stupid.

Bert Yetman

GRAPEVINE, TEXAS

THE WRITER IS PRESIDENT OF THE PROFESSIONAL PILOTS FEDERATION.

To the editor:

It must have been a slow day in the editorial room at the Review-Journal when you wrote "Killing time in Carson City" (Saturday).

The Democrats are wasting time resolving against the Republican effort to privatize Social Security?

Legislatures all over the country send opinions and resolutions to the federal government on a variety of subjects. Why not this partisan effort?

If the Review-Journal is worried about legislators twiddling their thumbs at this point in the session, they should editorialize about all the big-money lobbyists (mostly Republicans) wheeling and dealing in Carson City back rooms to shape legislation that eventually will be presented to legislators, often for simply their rubber stamp.

Richard Conner

LAS VEGAS

To the editor:

I am appalled that Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., was able to sneak a provision into an appropriations bill that removed protections for our wild horses.

The Wild Horse and Burro Protection Act of l971 has protected America's wild horses from being sold for slaughter. How can an appropriations bill to enact a budget be allowed to do away with a federal law without full disclosure to the taxpaying public?

We need to right this wrong. Nevadans shouldn't have to look at a quarter to see a wild horse.

Constance Brady

LAS VEGAS

To the editor:

Dr. Ikram Khan's Friday letter regarding the "character assassination" of Nevada Sen. Harry Reid by the national Republican Party is just another example of mindless sycophants attempting to divert attention from the truth about our senior senator.

No one who has come to the defense of Sen. Reid has provided a single example of a single falsehood in the GOP summary of Sen. Reid's record. Since when does publishing the truth about someone constitute character assassination?

Sen. Reid is the character assassin. In news releases issued by Sen. Reid on Jan. 6, Jan. 11 and Feb. 8, he called President Bush a liar. A review of his statements reveals that Sen. Reid offers no constructive alternatives, just incessant negative commentary. His attacks are mean-spirited and nasty, not principled.

Sen. Reid is an obstructionist. The obstructionist tactic of filibustering is so near and dear to Sen. Reid that he vowed to "screw things up" in the Senate if this toy was taken away.

"Independent like Nevada" means "Parrot of the Democratic Party." If the truth hurts, Sen. Reid should not blame the messenger.

Paul F. Adams

HENDERSON

To the editor:

In response to the controversy over UNLV professor Hans Hoppe, I fail to understand how he says we have taken his views out of context.

Mr. Hoppe claims all lifestyles incompatible with those protecting family, such as individual hedonism (most U.S.consumers?), parasitism (those people on welfare?), nature environmental worship (the Sierra Club?), homosexuality or communism, have to be physically removed from society if one is to maintain a libertarian order. I'm wondering how many people would be left in society after this removal.

I don't know how one can misconstrue the term "physically removed." They are, in Mr. Hoppe's vision, fine as long as they are removed and separate from the rest of his ideal libertarian society. Who does Mr. Hoppe propose to remove these people from society, and will this entail violence?

I suggest Mr. Hoppe read the highly acclaimed book of his fellow Austrian Sir Karl Popper, "The Open Society," which says society should tolerate differing groups as long as they remain nonviolent and attack their critics through open discussion and criticism.

I don't question Mr. Hoppe's right to espouse his views in either book form or in classroom lectures -- as long as I also have the reciprocal right to give my opinion as to what those views represent to me: right-wing fascism.

Richard Smith

LAS VEGAS