Las Vegas entertainer taken from us too soon

To the editor:

The saying, "Only the good die young" was truly proved at the passing of Danny Gans. I have never seen any of his shows but thought he had a great voice. We had made plans to go to one of his shows this summer. Now this will never be realized.

He was a great asset to Las Vegas and the world. Mr. Gans, you will be truly missed and you will live on in our hearts and minds.

K.R. Lewis

LAS VEGAS

Walk out

To the editor:

Representatives of 23 European countries walked out in protest when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on the world to unite against Israel at the recent opening session of the U.N. conference called to fight racism. The United States, Israel, Australia and nine European countries boycotted the proceedings in advance to protest Mr. Ahmadinejad's invitation to be the keynote speaker.

The United Nations never should have invited the Iranian president to speak given his anti-Semitic tirades in the past and his claims that the Holocaust was a hoax. What credibility did Mr. Ahmadinejad have in addressing the issue of fighting racism when he himself is clearly one of the world's most hateful, vengeful and venomous racists? The Iranian regime constitutes a threat to world peace, as evidenced by its president's remarks as well as its determined efforts at developing nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.

Those who walked out on Mr. Ahmadinejad should be commended for their courageous protest. The delegates of those countries who remained in place should be embarrassed by their cowardly stance in the face of real racism. In the words of Robert F. Kennedy, "What is objectionable, what is dangerous, about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents."

In this instance, both the words of Mr. Ahmadinejad and the silence of so many nations are dangerous.

ELLIOTT B. KARP

LAS VEGAS

THE WRITER IS PRESIDENT AND CEO OF THE JEWISH FEDERATION OF LAS VEGAS.

Free speech

To the editor:

Regarding your Wednesday editorial on UNLV's speech code: If there were speech codes on U.S. campuses in the 1960s, how far would the civil rights, women's and gay movements have gotten?

william jankowiak

HENDERSON