Letters

New Jersey student asks, what's it like to live in Carson?

I am a fourth grade student at Rutgers Preparatory School in Somerset, New Jersey. Our class is learning about the capitals of the United States. I would like to learn about what it is like to live in Carson City. If any of your readers would like to write a letter to me telling me about what it is like to live in the City of Carson City proper, it would help me understand more about the capital of Nevada. My address is: Michael You, in care of Miss Kazal, Rutgers Preparatory School, 1345 Easton Ave., Somerset, NJ 08873. Thank you for helping with my project.

MICHAEL YOU

Somerset, NJ

War, Patriot Act have protected Americans

A few days into the Clinton co-presidency, a young jihadi strolled along the left-turn lane leading into CIA headquarters at Langley, shooting car-bound American spies waiting in traffic. The Clintons' response to this attack and several bombings varied from non-existent to tepid.

Bill and Hill accepted this level of terror and ran off to the Balkans for a Euro-approved campaign. Peace through weakness failed on 9/11/01.

The attacks stopped when President Bush engaged the islamofascists in Iraq and Afghanistan and Republicans passed the Patriot Act. Each Democrat presidential candidate promises to end the fighting by surrendering our troops' sacred honor to islamofascism posthaste.

Outsourcing jobs to foreign workers that liberals just wouldn't do, the Clintons' rendition program was a cowardly flop. Third world interrogators used pliers and piano wire on the suspects we sent them; we got back a few intelligence crumbs.

We prosecuted terrorists like bank robbers, their civil rights intact and now recruiting for violent jihad in our prisons. No one was waterboarded, and no attacks were prevented, in this imitation of an anti-terror policy. This is what will replace the Patriot Act and Guantanamo.

Democrat peace with our terrorist enemies will be washed in civilian blood.

LYNN MUZZY

Minden

Check your receipt after checkout

As a retired senior citizen on a fixed income I'm a frequent shopper at a north east Carson store. I have more time than money, so I am a very careful shopper.

Many, many times, I have noticed that the sale price does not always reflect the price at the cash register. As you are unloading your purchases, the clerk is ringing them up. So you have no idea what you are being charged.

When you leave the register, check your sales slip. If you do not agree go directly to customer service.

Store policy in small print at each register says a refund of the difference plus three dollars, if it is over three dollars; if the item is under three dollars, the item is free.

Believe me customer service reps do not seem to understand this policy. You may, as I have many times, demanded a manager.

LEROY JORGENSON

Carson City

There are more pressing matters than lightbulbs

Well we can all sleep much better tonight knowing that great defender of the Constitution is on the job protecting us from the heavy hand of government imposing such egregious tyrannical machinations upon the people like phasing out the incandescent light bulb. My fears of fascist despotism have been alleviated at last and we can all walk together into the bright future with the freedom to ignore science and reason while continuing to foul our own nest for our children and their children for generations to come.

Once Chucklehead has succeeded in defending our right to continue our environmentally disastrous course as a species, perhaps he can turn his concern for Constitutional principles toward such unimportant concepts as habeas corpus, illegal wars against nations that pose no threat to us, wiretapping, torture, extraordinary rendition, secret prisons, the right to an attorney, murder, no-bid contracts to cronies, private armies, the poisoning of an entire region with depleted uranium munitions along with the knowing exposure of our own troops, election rigging, lies, looting of the national treasury, the wanton destruction of the cradle of civilization for the enrichment of a handful of oil corporations, and myriad other insignificant things that pose no real threat to constitutional rule of law. But for right now those things can wait. The most pressing issue demanding our immediate attention are those pesky new fangled light bulbs being forced down our throats by those insidious 5th columnists lurking in the halls of our national capitol.

Thank God we have patriots such as Chucklehead out there defending our most precious rights as Americans.

VINCE COYLE

Carson City

Schools need more vocational education options

We do not all possess the same academic learning ability. Some are classified as "special education" students, some are "mainstreamed," some are "gifted" and so on.

Depending on the school district, when we progress to high school or a bit before, we can be offered an alternative choice of a vocational program versus an academic program. Metal shop, woodshop, auto shop, ag shop, etc., are among the many options. But for many, this comes at a time in life when we have spent years being evaluated on an academic yardstick. Evaluations called Grades. For the would-be vocational student, many of those grades were Ds and Fs, or the equivalent. Half a dozen years or so of Ds and Fs have convinced them that they cannot do any better, no matter how hard they try. We have taught them to fail by not offering the vocational option in elementary school. We should be offering both academic and vocational track programs beginning in elementary school.

Both physical and mental abilities develop at different rates and times in different children. A late-bloomer can catch and pass an early bird. Because of this, perhaps a third track, between the academic and vocational tracks could be a useful tool making it easier to move from one to the other without as much difficulty. This is a concept that I have thought about and talked about for a long time. It is a dream of mine.

I was a vocational program teacher in high school, teaching offset printing, among other subjects. One of my students was getting along so well with our offset press, as the end of the grading period was approaching, that I felt I should tell him that if he would work a little bit harder he would be getting a B on his report card. His response was, "... Mr. Hersey, I've never got a B in my life!" This young man had been taught to fail.

FRED HERSEY

Gardnerville