Don’t kid yourself: The UAW destroyed Detroit

To the editor:

In response to Tom Grossman's recent letter in which he chides Review-Journal columnist Glenn Cook for saying the UAW helped kill the auto industry:

The best I can say for Mr. Grossman is that he has never worked in a UAW factory, and therefore does not know what he is talking about.

In the '60s I spent my summers working in a Flint, Mich., auto factory to pay for college. I won't go into detail about what I saw there -- it would take a book. But I came away from this experience believing it surprising that anything came out of that place working at all.

I worked in both assembly and quality control. So I saw both sides. Fortunately in all the jobs I've had since, I've never seen anything close to this bad. It is impossible to explain to anyone who hasn't seen it for themselves. It's a miracle to me that GM lasted this long. Robotics, I guess.

It is a sad truth that it is not in the interest of unions for management and workers to get along. The horrible cars that Mr. Grossman refers to were engineering attempts to design cars with such loose specs that they would somehow fall together, despite highly paid, unmotivated workers, who hated their boss, job and company. Not a good business plan.

Explain this, Mr. Grossman. The only Japanese plant over here with quality control problems is Mazda. I guess it is just an odd coincidence that it is the only UAW plant.

And now we have a president who threw out 200 years of contract law and handed the companies over to the people who destroyed them. I'm sure this will work out really well.

Gerald Laetz

LAS VEGAS

No more noise

To the editor:

In response to the Thursday commentary, "Screaming kids on Airplanes: Mayday!"

I can very much relate to that feeling of being held prisoner by the noise of kids whose selfish, arrogant and intruding mothers and fathers are not disciplining their children. Not so much on airplanes, but in my own neighborhood.

I absolutely dread when the kids are of out school, which in Las Vegas seems to be every other week. These kids get kicked out of the homes around 8 a.m. to scream, fight and cause utter chaos in front of my house, in my yard and everywhere else but their own homes. I can't tell you how many times I have had to go outside and yell at them to get off my lawn or stay away from my prized Mustang with their bats and their skateboards.

Right now as I type this letter, one of the many "children" might have broken her arm while all the parents were busy in their "garage" not monitoring them. What the hell is the matter with these parents? And they wonder why there are so many drownings in the city.

But really, how can I expect the children to behave any differently than their parents? I cannot understand what is it about Nevada people partying and practically living in their garages. Most of my neighbors have big homes and nice big back yards. But do they use them to entertain? No. They use their garage, which is in the front of the house, right outside my bedroom window. So I get to listen to their rants and raves, hoops and hollers, loud music, and profanity until the wee hours.

Nine times out of 10 this involves alcohol. And calling the Henderson Police is like hailing a cab in northeast Las Vegas. By the time they get there it's too late, if they come at all.

So while I agree that noisy children on airplanes are very disruptive, at least a plane ride lasts only a few hours. I've been tortured for more than three years and I've finally had enough. I'm headed back to the wilderness, to my peace and quiet, and away from the hell that's come to be known as Hendertucky.

Mel Nichols

HENDERSON

No paperwork

To the editor:

I don't understand why the White House is so upset about the two party crashers at Barack Obama's steak dinner the other night.

Is it really appropriate and politically correct to call them party crashers just because they trespassed on Mr. Obama? Does that make them criminals? Isn't that discrimination? Shouldn't they be rewarded for such bold and brave behavior? Maybe they were just trying to feed their family?

I would suggest that it's more appropriate to call them "undocumented guests."

Just because they weren't officially invited doesn't mean they should be treated like criminals. Maybe they should get free health care, free housing, free legal services and free White House green cards so next time they can enter legally. And they should be able to bring all of their relatives and family members, too.

How can Mr. Obama be mad at them just because they crossed over some arbitrary man-made border? They were there only to do the things that regularly invited guests didn't want to do. (Like hang out with Joe Biden.)

How can the White House punish these poor oppressed undocumented visitors?

Brian K. Shoemake

PAHRUMP

Getting warm

To the editor:

So suddenly we are seeing e-mails from one global warming alarmist to another about how to cover or explain away discrepancies, how to fake inconvenient data, how to silence critics, and the like. The so-called scientists are discrediting themselves first, but then the trail leads to other entities.

Both the journals that publish faked data and the institutions that employ the scientists are now badly tainted. Much of academia is involved, including many who teach younger children. The green movement and a host of other environmentalist groups will be revealed for the alarmists and power-seekers that they are. The same is true of government and quasi-government agencies -- from Al Gore and friends to the United Nations.

The upcoming climate conference in Copenhagen should really fold its tent and go home, but they will not give up easily. In fact, we should expect that none of the tainted ones will "do the right thing" without enormous and constant pressure from the general public. Therefore, we need to be speaking up loudly, clearly and often.

The United Nations has global government as a goal, and environmentalism is a major part of the strategy to achieve it. Barack Obama has said, "I believe in the U.N." He and his cohorts want us to believe that climate change is being caused by human activity, and that we need the government takeover called "cap and trade" to reduce CO2 emissions and thereby save the planet. That is baloney, and we need to let everyone in government know that we're not buying it.

Owen Nelson

LAS VEGAS