Duping People To the Editor, Your paper seems biased toward portraying Republicans as greedy special interest big business types who want to profit from starving children. This is not only untrue, it is laughable. I suppose if you tell lies long enough you can dupe people into believing anything, but the truth is that liberals have no solutions other than to raise taxes and to point fingers of blame at people who still believe in the American dream. For anyone else they have excuses. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and his name is Uncle Sam. He is a bloated, swaggering spendthrift who is spending our children's future paychecks like there is no tomorrow. To deny this is to embrace insanity. Don't misunderstand, I am not for giving public money to corporations. Let them earn it. But big corporations are also responsible for providing us with goods at a fraction of the cost other countries pay. They employ people. Like any person, they exist to make a profit. Instead of attacking them all the time, why not single out and attack the fraud and waste in entitlements? Why are there so few words devoted to the billions and billions of dollars stolen from us on phony disability claims and food stamp fraud? My mother taught me that the only entitlements you deserve are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. She said nothing about a check every month from Santa so I can make more babies and get a bigger check. We have bigger financial problems than many seem to realize, and the solution is not to spend but to work hard and to save, which is the "conserve" in "conservative." If you aren't going to just confiscate everything from everyone living north of the Rillito and call this a communist state, people are going to have to sacrifice instead of just putting their hands out for what you are teaching them they deserve. Otherwise, Santa's hand will one day be made of iron. --Cal Beach It's Murder Out There To the Editor, Regarding Gregory McNamee and Luis Alberto Urrea's "The Year of Living Dangerously," (Tucson Weekly, January 18): The writers included a quip by a detective who said, "The suspect was apprehended, then buried. Offered no resistance to the arresting officer." Perhaps you (and your readers) do not understand that someone who deals with the worst visions (EMTs, paramedics and law enforcement officers--especially officers assigned to homicide, sex crimes, and the DUI task force) has to have some outlet to dispel the effects of the horrendous crimes he has to see. The humor was not a result of being unfeeling or uncaring, it was simply a way of not having to cry at what one human being can do to another. In many years of working Disaster Management, I have known officers and other personnel who responded to some of the worst situations with "gallows humor." Every single one of them would lay down their life to save another if it became necessary. After a long day, they go home and possibly a spouse or child asks, "What did you do today?" Possible answer: "I tried--and failed--to save a 2-year-old who drowned in a pool." Public safety occupations are among the highest stress positions available. Before you simply publish a comment such as the one above, indicating to the public an astounding lack of compassion, please indicate there is some justification. Better still, arrange for McNamee and Urrea to go on ride-alongs with Tucson police, firemen and state troopers to see what the real world is like. Public safety professionals (both paid and volunteer) deserve all the support that we can give them. They deal with the worst society has to offer every day of their careers. They do not deserve to have the public told they do not care. --Todd A. Bordeaux To the Editor, When I saw "Murder City" in big, fat red letters on the cover of The Weekly (January 18), I was reminded that, yes, words do matter, reality matters, especially the one you choose to create and strengthen by focusing on it. In your case, feeding on fear and feeding it to others. Well, I'm not hungry for fear-based reality any longer. So allow me to retort to those who saw and read your cover story; don't buy into it. Choose not to focus on fear. Be cautious, always, let your intuition be your compass, but understand the power of your thoughts and vision, and how the media can feed you the blue-plate special of bad reality. Don't eat it. Don't buy into it. Choose love. Use love. I realize your paper isn't the Awareness Journal, but it gets read by folks like me, unlike the Citizen or Star. Sorry, Weekly guys and gals, but Tucson has another story cooking and hot off the grill; it's called creating the future in the parallel reality of love, and by the looks of things, the timing is perfect. --Sandia Smith Pet Causes To the Editor, Please discontinue printing letters (e.g., Maria Nasif's letter) that are simply dogmatic, knee-jerk reactions for pet causes. Nasif's letter "Bringing Out The Beast" (Tucson Weekly, January 18) was primarily about preaching the gospel of animal rights, and less a response to anything in The Weekly. I also object to editorials that aren't on the Op-Ed pages, especially from that part of the population that believes an animal without a brain can somehow "feel" anything beyond instinctual desire (i.e., the lobsters in Reay's Ranch Market's tank). Lobsters have only basic cerebral equipment, little more specialized than the dendritic endings themselves. Printing letters that take issue with a past non-issue is not how to serve your reading public. I am, however, curious about several things. Has Nasif ever, since becoming a lover and protector of all living beings, swatted a fly, used insect spray (even the "organic" ones count), or stepped on a roach? If she has, then she has invalidated the very principles by which she stands ("All animals...desire to be free, to be pain free and to be with their own kind" and "if we extend our circle of compassion to all livings things, no matter how different they are from our own species..."). I believe she has killed that cockroach, swatted that fly, and not given it a second thought. She's plainly a killer of "species different from our own." In fact, if she has ever driven a car, walked on the grass, or breathed unfiltered air she has killed species different from her own, and she should, by her own logic, be condemned for it. I submit, then, that letters as flawed and openly self-contradictory as hers not be printed. Perhaps instead of printing left-leaning eco-dribble like her letter, you could point her to the local library (and be nice and give her some shelf numbers while you're at it), where she can find information that will help her redeem herself. For Nasif, an extreme case to be sure, I would suggest any information regarding Jainism. She'll have to walk around with a mask and carry a broom, but at least she'll know where to draw the line between being a killer and being alive without having to change a flawed argument. Like most other regular people, I'll admit I'm a killer at any magnitude and enjoy my turkey sandwich as I read The Weekly. Maybe she could too. That way, we'll never have to hear about it again. --William Rhodess We Want Letters! Thrilled by our brilliant insights? Sick of our mean-spirited attacks? Need to make something perfectly clear? Write: tucsonweekly@tucsonweekly.com

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