Limiting competition not the right approach

To the editor:

I have been following the Bishop Gorman High School story for weeks now. I have a few observations from a business perspective.

First of all, I did try my hand - or body, as the case may be - at football when I was in high school 50 some years ago. I weighed only 135 pounds and was not very successful. I did not have much luck getting the coach to ban players who weighed much more than I did.

And I did not think the entire high school division would go along with my idea either, so I gave up my football career.

Many things have transpired since that time. I had a wonderful career in business in which I had the opportunity to hire and work with some very talented people who were motivated and dedicated to doing their very best.

During the hiring process, I paid close attention to education and past performance. I must admit that I did not need to find the very best every time, but I did want those who had competed with the best. When you compete against the best, your game goes up, no matter whether your game is sports, business or something else.

Only now, I am not talking about the student-athletes. I am talking about a bunch of adults who may decide to keep Bishop Gorman, which is excellent in many sports, out of the playoffs to ensure other schools can claim a victory.

Would this body of adults pass laws that prevented future employers from hiring "A" students because it was unfair to the "B" and "C" students?

DENNIS SHINN

LAS VEGAS

Diabolical GOP

To the editor:

From Day One of this president's term, Republicans have held true to their No. 1 goal "to make President Obama a one-term president" (Sen. Mitch McConnell on the floor of the U.S. Senate). That philosophy has worked well in that they have opposed every policy move President Obama has promoted - even those they themselves originally proposed - in order to prove his policies have failed.

Prior to the 2010 elections, a record of filibusters prevailed over job creation, health care, immigration, Wall Street reforms and consumer protections. Unfortunately, voters in 2010 - seemingly unaware that the president's hands were effectively being tied by Congress - gave that election to the Tea Party Republicans who were even more determined to see the president fail and further prevented his progressive agenda from going forward.

Now that the 2012 presidential campaign is under way, Republicans are predictably using the poor economy - which they have succeeded in stalling - to lend credence to their claims that the president has failed. Today, President Obama is being charged with breaking promises he made in his 2008 campaign, but the truth is that Congress has seen to it that those promises could not be kept, from closing Guantanamo to immigration reform, Wall Street and tax reforms. In the name of budget reductions, they have succeeded in reducing or eliminating investments in education, infrastructure, science and technology, which could all be of benefit to economic growth.

The tactics are disgraceful and have been shameful. Stunting economic growth in their determination to regain the White House has not hurt the president as much as it has hurt the American people. While job creation has increased in the private sector, the losses in the public sector have offset those gains, and as a result cuts in vital public services are now the norm. Wages are stagnant for the middle class just as corporate earnings have skyrocketed, and still Republicans insist that loopholes and tax credits for the very rich should not only be continued but expanded.

Nowhere in the Republican agenda do I see any plan for economic growth except in corporate America, which has grown by leaps and bounds over the past 16 years. Not one bill has been introduced by Republicans in the House or Senate that would promote job creation without further cuts to domestic programs that have benefited the poor and middle class. If voters turn over the presidency and Senate, they will keep corporate America in the driver's seat and nothing will change.

Things will only get worse.

DIANE KREMSER

LAS VEGAS

Cost effective?

To the editor:

I all but choked on my Raisin Bran when I read the Tuesday front-page story, "U.S. launches Alzheimer's fight." There are a few things actually known about the illness, the first being that the cause is unknown. So to plan to treat it effectively is more than a small stretch.

The chance for the drug companies to market a drug that could be administered for 10 years prior to the onset of symptoms, much like heart drugs, would be a tremendous boon to the industry and a huge cost to consumers.

In my personal experience - having lost my mother-in-law and more recently my wife's aunt to the illness - the victim gets along fairly well until the symptoms progress to the point that the victim is not capable of living an unassisted life. And then the end seems to come in a very few years.

Because the disease is an end-of-life problem, the only way money would be saved would be if the victim died suddenly at some politically acceptable time.

The thought that the government is planning to treat people without symptoms, probably against their will, makes me shudder and think of the old Soviet mental facilities. Would failure to believe in global warming be a symptom of early Alzheimer's? How about voting for conservatives or writing letters to the newspaper?

Makes me envy the Greeks, whose busted government won't be able to afford such interventions.

I hope by 2025, we won't, either.

Ed Dornlas

Las Vegas