Telling it like it is about the state of Nevada

To the editor:

In response to the Sunday commentary, "Nevada's depravity, " by two UNLV professors:

At last. Writers who tell it like it is, prominently displayed on the front page of the Review-Journal's Viewpoints section. "Gambling and the hustler's ethos corrupt local sensibilities." Indeed. I would not have believed it if I hadn't read it myself.

All this is compounded, one might add, by contentious homeowners' associations that siphon off thousands of dollars each year for walls, security gates and private guards to keep the "others" out. Those "volunteer taxes" might better go to community police, social services for all and improved education.

Meantime, the distorted power of the malefactors of great wealth, as Teddy Roosevelt called them, and the politicians who are bought and sold by the local gambling culture, is then magnified by the megaphone of a parochial, libertarian, anti-tax, anti-government press, the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

With the exception of an occasionally heroic John L. Smith and the straight-shooting Jane Ann Morrison, this is the newspaper equivalent of a ranting Rush Limbaugh. Just take a look at the biased headlines, even on straight news stories.

I love the desert. I love the wildflowers and the geology and the amazing history of this crazy state. I even have my political heroes: Mike O'Callaghan and Harry Reid, for starters. However, last election the nation chose Obama. Nevada got Jim Gibbons.

Little wonder nearly half of the citizens want to leave but can't. They are in hock to the developers and the banks and the system here.

Beneth B. Morrow

Las Vegas

Insulting essay

To the editor:

I found the Sunday essay, "Nevada's depravity," to be insulting to the intelligence of the citizens of this state. As usual, we have academics complaining that they do not have enough money.

There will never be enough money for education, so figure out how to be more efficient in using what you have. Why has the cost of education gone up so much higher than inflation for over 20 years -- each and every year? And we note the results here in Nevada as being well below average all the way around. The same trend is true in California. As we used to say when I lived there -- and we spent plenty on the schools -- we graduated "a bunch of morons who felt good about themselves."

If you want to reallocate money, try getting the public employee unions to take a big cut in pay and then have the tenured professors teach classes rather than do "research." Research is for the hard sciences, not all others. If you ask most people what professors and other academics should do first, they would say teach the students.

We don't need more taxes to feed the monster of government. We need to shrink the services and the bloated public employees' salaries and benefits.

Paul Beehler

Las Vegas

Real immigrants

To the editor:

To illustrate support for what is generally believed to be an unconstitutional Arizona immigration law, Publisher Sherman Frederick mentioned in the Review-Journal ("Arizona's border war," Sunday column) attempts by the U.S. cavalry in the 1800s to rid the Arizona territory of its first Americans, the Apache Indian Nation.

"What's Arizona supposed to do?" Mr. Frederick asked. "At least back then President Chester Arthur sent the cavalry to vigorously chase the likes of Cochise, Geronimo, Victorio and Chatto."

Perhaps if the indigenous peoples of the Americas had a stronger immigration policy 500 years ago, Mr. Frederick would need to carry around documents to prove he is a legal citizen of North America.

He also might have to speak one of the country's native languages. Not English, but Lakota, Osage, Oneida, Kumeyaay, Shoshone or Paiute. Perhaps he would have to speak Apache.

Dave Palermo

Henderson

Rule change

To the editor:

In response to Paul Frano's Saturday letter, "More bailouts": I am one of those irresponsible people who has stopped paying on my credit card bills. And here's why:

I refuse to go along with those lenders who give you a credit card with a stipulated APR and then for no reason other than "we do it because we can," raise the rate anywhere from 5 to 10 percentage points.

I am no inexperienced borrower. I am in my 60s and have owned a few homes in my time and have had and paid off credit cards. Right now, I have stopped paying on three of the four cards I have. The reason? Even though I have never been late in making my monthly payments, the lender decided to change the rules.

I have spoken to supervisors at all three lenders and told them that I would be more than happy to resume paying them if they would bring back the APR that I had signed on for. None of them would agree to this, and I flat out told them that in that case, I would let them turn it over to collection.

How stupid are these companies that would risk losing a good-paying customer and in the process end up with nothing?

If someone can show just cause for letting them manipulate their APRs at their whim, I would gladly listen.

I will not be strong-armed, and this is my only recourse.

Jim Anderson

Henderson