Woman also played role in Ensign affair

To the editor:

I have seen all the articles about John Ensign, and I have had it with the mud slinging.

Nobody has mentioned one word about the other woman in a negative light. But she is not some poor victim, she was a married woman who willfully had an affair with her husband's best friend.

Please stop putting all the blame on him. She's no innocent child.

Also, I bet that if the truth were known, more than half the people in office cheat on their spouses. That is nothing new, and it doesn't have anything to do with the job they do.

By the way, I did not vote for Sen. Ensign, but do know he has done good things while in office.

Edith Jones

North Las Vegas

Public radio

To the editor:

How timely that the letter from Lamar Marchese, the former general manager of the local public radio station, was published on the day that the truth about PBS/NPR was exposed and the organization's leader was forced to resign.

While Mr. Marchese trotted out the standard, phony talking points defending the organization, officials with public broadcasting are now being exposed as exactly what Steve Chapman described in his March 6 column and worse.

The elitists at PBS/NPR are left-wing radicals sucking at the taxpayer breast. NPR Foundation President Ron Shiller was caught on tape trying to discredit the Tea Party movement by calling the organization racist -- not because he can show it to be true, but because he disagrees with the beliefs of that organization and it's just convenient to do so for his agenda.

That's the "news" that Mr. Marchese talks about in his letter defending the organization. PBS/NPR "news" is clearly agenda driven as shown by the tapes revealed on Tuesday. Mr. Marchese also states that the organization is not funded by advertising. This is not a true statement. Almost every program begins and ends with a paean to a corporation or foundation that has funded the program. Mr. Marchese: When the program is funded by ABC Gaming Corp. or XYZ Oil Co., and they get air time to say it, is that not advertising?

Mr. Marchese asks "where would Mr. Chapman advise we turn" if federal funding is cut off? I would respond that this is not the taxpayers' problem.

This organization has now proven to be exactly what conservatives have complained about for years. No further tax dollars should be wasted on it.

James Magnuson

Las Vegas

To the editor:

Last month I took my car to a mechanic here in Las Vegas. He charged $65 per hour, and told me that was a bargain. The dealer mechanics charge much more per hour.

Last week I had some plumbing work done in my house, also in Las Vegas. The plumber charged me $98 per hour, and told me that was the going rate.

Now both of these professions requires training, but neither requires a four-year college degree as does the teaching profession. The four-year degree is a requirement of the state, not the Clark County School District.

The starting salary of teachers with a four-year degree but no experience in the Clark County School District, including benefits, is $49,958. Their take-home pay is based on $35,083. Teachers work seven hours and 11 minutes per day (which equates to 7.18 hours) for 184 days (the length of an average teacher contract).

Do the math and you find a beginning teacher, with no experience, makes $37.81 per hour.

Way too much, you say. OK, how about if we pay teachers baby-sitting rates. Let's say this teacher is an elementary school teacher and has 25 students in her class. Students are in school for six hours. Let's pay the teacher only for the time she is actually with her students and not for any of the time she must spend planning her lessons, grading papers, getting report cards ready, meeting with specialists about any of her students, meeting with parents, attending required training sessions, taking care of fund raising paperwork, or doing paperwork required by administration.

We know elementary teachers have prep periods of 50 minutes and a lunch break of about 40 minutes. That makes 90 minutes she is not with her students. So that leaves 4.5 hours a day she is with her students. Each parent will pay $3 per child. The students are in school 170 days. The teacher is with her students 765 hours per school year.

How does that work out? Well, 25 students times $3 per student equals $75 per hour. Multiply $75 times 765 hours and you find this beginning teacher, with no experience, should be getting paid $57,375 (without benefits).

My question: Where do you find a baby-sitter in Las Vegas for $3 an hour?

Barbara Radecki

Las Vegas

Sucker's deal

To the editor:

Members of unions are net consumers of tax money, and they pay union dues. Therefore, some of our tax money goes to the union hierarchy. The union bosses, after extracting healthy sums for their own pay and benefits, use the rest of the money to elect unscrupulous politicians who will raise taxes to feed the insatiable maw of public unions.

Members of private unions (industrial, building trades, etc.) are payers of tax money, and they also pay union dues. In effect, the private union members are paying union bosses to help raise the private members' taxes.

The union bosses call that "solidarity." It smells more like a sucker's deal to me.

In Wisconsin, Ohio and even here in Nevada, it is not the governor against the public unions ... it is the public unions against the taxpayers.

Robert W. Ritchey

Henderson