Agassi deserves community’s gratitude
To the editor:
I have just watched this week's "60 Minutes" interview with Andre Agassi. I respect him for telling his story. It's not an easy thing to do.
We all have personal demons, and few have the courage to reveal them, especially in such a public forum. Yes, he did take illegal drugs, and that was not appropriate. However, he did overcome his problem.
Mr. Agassi has done a lot for the children of Las Vegas, which he did not have to do. Many of them are patients in my office, and I am delighted to see them getting a good education. Martina Navratilova's analogy to Roger Clemens is way off base. Mr. Agassi's drug use did not augment his career. It detracted from it.
Whenever those kids come in my office, their mothers express gratitude for Mr. Agassi and the school he built. We all should do the same.
William Downey
LAS VEGAS
Great person
To the editor:
It is about time that someone has written with some accuracy about Andre Agassi and how much he has done for Las Vegas (John L. Smith Sunday column). His charter school has done as well as The Meadows School with a much different client base.
We all make errors in life, but not many of us dedicate our lives to doing good for folks who do not have the advantages that others have. There is a house in Child Haven that he has donated. The money he has raised for charity over the years is as great or greater than anyone else in sports.
Andre Agassi is a great, giving person and is honest. Mr. Smith was good to point out some of the things that Mr. Agassi has contributed. Thank you, Mr. Smith.
Keith Morrison
LAS VEGAS
Accountable? Well, no
To the editor:
In response to recent letters discussing the notion of holding teachers accountable:
Teachers should be held accountable if their students are below average, don't study, and score poorly on a test.
Also, dentists should be held accountable if their patients don't brush their teeth and get tooth decay or gum disease.
Doctors should be held accountable if their patients don't exercise, eat unhealthy foods and get diabetes or have a heart attack.
Police officers should be held accountable if people drive over the speed limit and have a car accident. Pharmacists should be held accountable if their patients exceed the prescribed dosage and have an adverse reaction to their medication.
The people who voted for George W. Bush should be held accountable because ... well, I think you understand the point that I'm trying to make.
I'm a teacher and I work very hard, but I can't go home with every one of my students and make sure they study and get a good night's sleep. I do the best that I can during the short amount of time that I'm with my students. At the end of each day, I'm proud of serving the community, even if all of my students don't pass the test.
Diana A. Soto
LAS VEGAS
Great leaders
To the editor:
Our local congresswomen, Shelley Berkley and Dina Titus, should be commended for standing up and doing the right thing by voting for the Affordable Health Care for America Act. They have consistently supported those among us who are less fortunate and disenfranchised by society. If we want examples of great leadership we need to look no further than our own back yard.
Jerry Nadal
LAS VEGAS
More taxes?
To the editor:
The idea of trying to tax the resale of hotel rooms -- Orbitz.com, Hotels.com and the like -- when the resales occur outside Nevada is simply ludicrous and another ill-thought-out attempt to derive more revenue to pay our state and county employees (Saturday Review-Journal).
This is just another foot downhill on the slippery slope leading to business income taxes in Nevada.
In case anyone hasn't noticed, the area southeast of McCarran International Airport is full of telephone customer service centers recruited to Nevada based on our no-tax environment and intended to lessen our region's dependence on gaming jobs.
Can you imagine how quickly Amazon would shut down its newly purchased Zappos in Henderson if Nevada or Clark County starts messing around with a "broad-based business tax" or if Clark County decides that shoes purchased by phone or over the Internet by a buyer in Dubuque and shipped from Memphis are subject to the sales tax in Clark County?
The legal logic behind the county taxing the out-of-state resales of hotel rooms is the same as the logic behind taxing call center "revenue."
I have reached the point where we are pulling all of our family's business entities out of Nevada. Why? Because the ever-increasing, badly written, Nevada secretary of state's regulatory requirements are contradictory, ill-timed and confusing -- let alone the constantly increasing fees. It's now cheaper to organize and operate passive land-owning entities in Delaware, the Ritz of corporate organizational domains, rather than it is here.
In this economic crisis, Nevada is sending out all sorts of anti-job creation messages in its regulatory and tax schemes. Clark County suing companies doing business outside Nevada, for sales outside of Nevada, will send businesses across the country who could create new jobs here yet another loud and bad message: "Tricky tax structure. Stay away!"
Alan Shaw
LAS VEGAS
