How can the truth be ‘anti-Obama’?
To the editor:
On your Sept. 1 Quick Read page, your headline "Anti-Obama indie film surging" was very disappointing. More appropriate would have been "Obama documentary film surging." To me, your headline was a disservice to Mr. Gerald Molen, a former Las Vegas resident and producer of the film.
In making this documentary, I'm sure his intention was for the film to have some appeal to Obama supporters and independents who might want to learn something more about this man from a well-researched and professionally made film exploring Mr. Obama's early years.
The film explains exactly what is meant by those "dreams from his father," how these dreams have influenced Mr. Obama's policies as president, and how they will continue to influence his decisions should he be re-elected in November. "Anti-Obama" is a mis-characterization.
I don't think Mr. Molen, who also won an Academy Award for producing "Schindler's List," made this fine film to be seen only by Republicans and conservatives, when in essence that would just be "preaching to the choir." Now, after seeing the article's headline, what Obama fan, or honest information-seeking independent, is going to want to spend time at a film your headline describes as "Anti-Obama"?
Although your article was informative and complimentary, the headline was a bad choice.
JERRY PATCHMAN
LAS VEGAS
Taxes unrelated to hiring
To the editor:
Glenn Cook ("Tax petition a compromise killer," Sept. 2) advocated that people should not sign the NSEA petition to increase taxes for public education needs.
His discussion essentially boiled down to three arguments: first, that such a tax increase would not be supported by lawmakers or politicians of either party in Nevada; second, that a threat of a tax increase in 2015 would create uncertainty within small business and therefore stifle job creation; and finally that public education doesn't need more money. What it needs is things like vouchers, charter schools, and an end to collective bargaining.
Mr. Cook's first argument is simply not germane. If it is the case that public schools need additional funding, the fact that others like Mr. Cook do not see it is a good reason for putting it to the public for a vote.
Mr. Cook's second argument is an old saw used over and over again by conservatives. The idea that small businesses' decisions to hire or not hire new employees are somehow linked to taxes to be paid has never been proven and to my mind is unsustainable. As Democrats like to say, it didn't work before and it will not work now.
Mr. Cook's last argument is one that I find really dislikable. He argues that school vouchers are somehow going to make our public schools work again. Of course he offers no proof for this whatsoever. They never do. School vouchers are simply a way for conservatives to obtain money for their own children's private education.
He tells us that charter schools are the way to go, when it has been shown that charter schools are no better or no worse than non-charter schools. And, his attack on collective bargaining is simply an attack on both teachers (unwarranted) and unions - dreaded by conservatives.
How about we instead take a hard look at the tax revenues lost for public education and consider the fact that it indeed might need some relief. After all, these are our own children we are talking about.
RICHARD L. STRICKLAND
NORTH LAS VEGAS
Global warming very real
To the editor:
The science, the source, and the threat of global climate change are very real, and Vin Suprynowicz's column ("Doctored to justify latest power grab?" Sept. 2) mocking those who are justifiably concerned about climate change is a gold mine of half-, quarter-, and un-truths.
One powerful "tell" is his reliance on Richard Lindzen, the only remaining climatologist of any repute who maintains a contrarian position on the issue, and also one of the only scientists still disputing the relationship between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. Similarly, the analyses of Norman Rogers, Suprynowicz's other cited authority, have been repeatedly and thoroughly debunked, as a few moments' research will demonstrate.
Ridiculing the change in nomenclature from "global warming" to "climate change" as a sign of liberal desperation is another standard denialist argument, but nothing could be further from the truth. The term "climate change" was first proposed by Republican strategist Frank Luntz during the Bush administration as a "less frightening" alternative to "global warming."
It's a peculiar irony that Luntz's attempt at deceiving the public is a more accurate way of describing the complex phenomena that so profoundly alarm scientists and environmentalists - perhaps one of the only times that Bush-speak told the truth.
Mr. Suprynowicz's paper gets an F.
WARREN SENDERS
MEDFORD, MASS.
Was it highway smog?
To the editor:
Great article by Vin Suprynowicz on the global warming scam. I saw a documentary last week on the History Channel about the decline of Egypt many years ago.
The scientists concluded that Egypt, a once thriving country, withered away for several hundred years because the climate changed. The usual floodwaters that irrigated the Nile failed to produce the rich soil, and in a short time the economy tanked out and Egypt collapsed.
Then, hundreds of years later, the rains came again and the Nile received the necessary waters to bring Egypt back. They explained how the ocean currents had changed, causing this phenomenon.
What I didn't hear mentioned in the story was how all those carbon-emitting machines made by man caused this weather change.
Thanks for writing the story. I have earmarked the April 23 piece on environmental scientist James Lovelock in the London Daily Mail, to send to the morons who believe they can change Mother Nature.
MICHAEL O. KREPS
LAS VEGAS
