City needs to get its priorities straight

To the editor:

The juxtaposition of your Friday articles on the airport noise issue and the homeless struck me as strangely ironic. The city of Las Vegas has 11,370 citizens living on the streets, with no help from our city in solving this problem. Meanwhile, the city will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to fight the Federal Aviation Administration's decision to reroute departing planes over the northwest.

Regarding the "homeless" situation, our City Council is trying to close many of the halfway houses that treat addicts and keep them off the streets while offering recovery programs -- at no cost to the city. That same City Council is spending money -- lots of money -- trying to appease a minority of citizens who complain of airplane noise. Where was this minority when planes from Nellis Air Force Base started taking off at dawn for maneuvers?

Please, someone, tell me that they never noticed the noise from the bombers, fighters and helicopters. Please tell me that the noise from the news, police and tourist helicopters never bothered them. Has the noise from the low-flying private planes that land, day and night, at the North Las Vegas Airport never bothered them?

Come on, let's get our city's priorities straight. Please place the "morally correct" thing to do over the "politically correct."

Estelle Disselhorst

LAS VEGAS

Nuke dump

To the editor:

Molly Ball's interview with presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain at The Venetian on April 19 revealed a man who's in favor of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain whether it's suitable for waste emplacement or not. The proper answer to the question for a president is: We'll have to see what the nuclear experts at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission say after their review of the license application.

Sen. McCain says he has supported waste storage at Yucca Mountain. It's one thing to be in favor of Yucca Mountain as a senator, but the matter has to be treated wholly differently as a president. As a president, one has to wait and see.

Sen. McCain says a repository is needed. It doesn't matter what's needed. What matters is what's safe.

RON BOURGOIN

ROCKY MOUNT, N.C.

Bush's war

To the editor:

Voltaire is often quoted as saying: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." I served in the U.S. armed forces to protect that right and will fight to the death, if need be, to protect the right of Troy Ahyo to write his letter, published in Sunday's Review-Journal, condemning Sen. Harry Reid's choice of words.

Sen. Reid was justifiably expressing the will of the majority of Nevada citizens and the majority of Americans. As an unabashed and unapologetic liberal, I can attest to the fact that Sen. Reid is no "leftist."

And to call the patriots of MoveOn.org cowards is a stretch. One has to look at what our president and vice president did during the Vietnam War, when their country needed them most. These two chicken hawks are too willing to send other people's sons and daughters -- but not their own -- into harm's way in the quagmire of Iraq. "Cowardice"? These two "patriots" wrote the book on "cowardice."

When Mr. Ahyo can define "victory" and "surrender" as they relate to Iraq, maybe the misinformed majority of the U.S. public and the rest of the world will go along with President Bush's war.

Joe Beltran

NORTH LAS VEGAS

Right on

To the editor:

I commend Sen. Harry Reid's courage in announcing we have "lost" the war. Since President Bush's "mission accomplished" speech, Iraq has become a battleground of violence and bloodshed. Mr. Bush's strategy has failed, and even with the troop surge, the bloodshed has continued and become worse.

The president's arrogant, stubborn theory of victory is a recipe for more carnage. It is time to step up to the plate and say what many are too frightened to say. Sen. Reid, your courageous hypothesis that the war is lost is right on.

We have lost more than the war. We have lost the trust and faith other nations had placed in this nation. Not only our own citizenry, but Iraq's citizens and much of the new government officialdom has lost confidence in Washington's inept and bungling war policy. The bloodshed continues.

Bob Burgess

HENDERSON

Average day?

To the editor:

As tragic and senseless as the shooting was at Virginia Tech, I'm curious as to why it is that when 32 innocent people are murdered in one location it's referred to as a "massacre," whereas when 45 innocent people are murdered each day across America, it's known as an "average day."

Since the Review-Journal published the photos of the 32 Virginia Tech murder victims on the front page of Sunday's edition, shouldn't you also publish the photos of the approximately 360 Americans murdered just since that tragic day last Monday?

Franklin Max

LAS VEGAS