Mailbag

Claim: Our Endorsements Are ... Biased?

I read your biased article in the Tucson Weekly, telling us Arizonans how to vote ("Decisions, Decisions '06," Oct. 5).

Your article outlined six issues involving Gabrielle Giffords and Randy Graf. Let me enlighten you and your editorial board on other issues about Giffords which you have obviously and deliberately overlooked.

1. Gifford made her views clear at a presentation at the Tanque Verde Guest Ranch on Sept. 27. She does not favor English as the national language, and she does not support (2004's) Proposition 200, which the majority of Arizonans supported.

2. She refused to be on the Lou Dobbs show on Oct. 2. Is she afraid to openly discuss her views on immigration?

3. Gifford was outright hostile to immigration issues when she was in the Legislature. She never voted for a single anti-immigration bill.

About Janet Napolitano: Evidently your editorial board is not aware of Napolitano's vetoes against all immigration issues. She is not for the Arizona citizen--she is for corporate interests.

In the future, why not publish all the facts so that readers get the true picture--NOT YOUR BIASED VIEWS.

Jim Nixon

How Will Banning Gestation Crates Lead to a Ban on Meat? It Just Will, Damn It!

While Proposition 204 on the surface is benign ("Hogwash or Humanity?" Currents, Oct. 5), it represents the beginning of a campaign by animal rights/animal worshippers to force us to become vegetarians. Since there is no veal production, and at most two pig-breeding farms in Arizona, why did the animal rights/animal worshippers spend all of that effort and money to put Prop 204 on the ballot if they did not have an ulterior motive--the eventual ban on the slaughter of animals for food?

New Zealand has banned the cooking of live lobsters in boiling water. A restaurant in Italy was fined for displaying live lobster on ice. Under pressure from animal rights/animal worshippers, Whole Foods markets have stopped selling live lobsters. They are trying to have the kosher slaughter of cows banned in the United States. Some European countries may also ban the import of kosher meat. This would force observant Jews in these countries to either become vegetarians or give up the practice of their version of Judaism. They are trying to ban the slaughter of animals for food in San Francisco's Chinatown. They have demanded that the University of Arizona shut down its animal science program (Arizona Daily Wildcat, April 22, 2003).

I am a theoretical neuroscientist, retired economist and environmentalist. I have no connections to the livestock industry. Vote no on Proposition 204.

Alfred Levinson

Censored List Is Just a Bunch of Liberal Hooey

I don't see how any of those stories can be considered "censored" or "underreported" ("Censored Stories," Sept. 14). I can remember near-saturation coverage of all of them.

Several of the "stories" are just that: fiction. The supposed "lack of coverage" is more likely due to a fact-checker at the newspaper making such a determination.

The "censored" list is just a list that a far-left-wing professor and his students in California are publicizing to further liberal causes, not report news. The No. 18 story on the list was how the government blew up the World Trade Center using "controlled demolition." Come on!

The conspiracy theories, urban legends and flat-out false stories on the list don't withstand even superficial critical scrutiny, but might be fodder for snopes.com. With every newspaper in the world available to anyone anytime via the Internet, no one needs left-wing radicals telling us that we should be reading the baloney they believe is true, and that if we don't, we're being censored.

Walter Kovacs

You Can't Determine What's Happening at a Protest While Driving By

Regarding the responses to Gretchen Nielsen's guest commentary (Aug. 24): The responses are ignorant and need a reality check ("Claim: Anti-War Protesters Are Bullies, Anti-American," Mailbag, Sept. 14, and "Nielsen's Commentary: Frustrating" and "Nielsen's Commentary: She Needs to Be More Tolerant," Mailbag, Sept. 7).

Some drive-by observers of the anti-war protests have commented on how aggressive the anti-war group looks. The only reason we stake our positions aggressively is because the pro-war group constantly blocks our signs, gets in our way physically, and constantly insults and berates the pro-peace group using curse words and worse.

The peace groups have laid claim to the area across the street from the recruiting center, and have let the pro-war groups take the spot in front of the recruiting center. Nevertheless, the pro-war crowd has followed the peace groups across the street and wherever we set up, in order to block out the message of peace.

Unless you can drive by and read lips, or stop your cars and get out to see what's really going on, there is no way you can understand the extent of the aggression from some--not all--of the pro-war people. So stop and get out of your cars and join us. Otherwise, you will never see the real attempts to shut us up and shut us down.

Joe Callahan

If You Want to See Desert Pirates More Evil Than Ours ...

Love the new Best of Tucson^TM issue. Even three years removed from my college experience in the Old Pueblo, I still find myself nostalgically surfing back over to the Tucson Weekly site from time to time.

Anyhow, I have a link to a very short movie a friend of mine from college made about the very subject you bring up in your opening to this year's Best of Tucson^TM: desert pirates. I actually think this movie was made around 2003, but I guess it took a bit of time and you fine folks to bring it into relevance. Have a look, and pass it around if the notion strikes ye.

Ben Turner

Volunteers Seem to Need Better Medical Training

I just completed a recent article ("Back to Mexico," Sept. 7), and I have to admit I went into the reading with a doubtful eye right from the start.

The article itself was fine, but I am not sure who picked the photographs to run with this story. I am sure many people have already responded to Maryada Vallet's incorrect procedure while taking a simple pulse. Was there no medical review of these pictures with the article ever completed?

The topic is a very important one, I believe, considering the article was coupled with not one, but two shots of incorrect medical assistance; they soured the article from the onset.

Please let Maryada know that taking someone's pulse with your thumb only assures the reading of one thing: the pulse rate of the EMT. This could have endangered (and may continue to do so) people in her care.

Amy K. Anderson