Los Changuitos Feos
Tucson is a very busy place during the spring months. Just during the weekend of March 25 and 26, people could shop at the Fourth Avenue Street Fair, be amazed by the Thunder and Lightning Air Show, participate in many other activities, or just enjoy Tucson weather. But, if you didn’t attend the mariachi fundraising event for Los Changuitos Feos at the El Casino Ballroom Sunday afternoon, boy did you miss out! Performers ranged from young children with beautiful costumes and great enthusiasm all the way up to the more “senior” alumni members of the mariachi group, Los Changuitos Feos. The music was incredible and the youth talent in Tucson is hard to believe. If you don’t know and love the tradition and heritage of youth mariachi in Tucson, then you don’t know Tucson!
Douglas Wingert
Northeast side
Protecting our children
Does anyone out there think it’s strange that Republicans want to “protect” our children from books and art masterpieces that they consider pornographic, yet they have no problem with guns everywhere in the hands of everyone? Wouldn’t their energy be better spent protecting school children from gun violence? So far this year, we have had 13 school shootings where someone was killed or injured, yet nothing has been done. One mother, in Nashville at the latest shooting, lamented that we don’t do anything to stop this. Well, look at the people you elect. They are more interested in their beloved Second Amendment rights than they are the safety of our schools. This isn’t going to stop unless we really get serious about who we send to Congress.
Mary Zimmerman
SaddleBrooke
The thrifty way to fight climate change
Re: the March 24 letter “Electric vehicles.”
This writer’s complaint that “the federal government is subsidizing charging stations for a preferred group of EV owners” completely overlooks the reason for such action — global climate change.
A recent study published in the scientific journal, Joule, finds “rapid replacement of fossil fuel technologies by low-cost key green technologies to be $514 billion cheaper” than doing nothing at all.
NY Times’ economics, business and finance writer, Peter Coy, summarizes the study beautifully: How to Fight Climate Change for a Bargain, March 20.
Though present EV owners will benefit, rapid transition is aimed at another “preferred group” — our offspring.
Greg Lewis
Midtown
Improved First Avenue plan
I was thrilled to see the Regional Transportation Board (RTA) support a scope change for the City’s First Avenue project. Reducing the six-lane widening to four lanes while focusing on improvements that will make it safer for pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers alike, will save taxpayers of Tucson and Pima County millions of dollars. It will also lessen negative impacts to numerous small businesses along the corridor. This project has received impressive amounts of public feedback and the changes reflect today’s transportation and climate realities, not outdated assumptions from 2006. The flexibility the RTA board is showing with this decision, along with giving more autonomy to the technical and citizens committee, is appreciated and hopeful.
Kevin Dahl, Council Member, City of Tucson Ward 3
Midtown
Guns in America
If only the Nashville Police had been in Uvalde, TX...
If only “thoughts and prayers” could put an end to mass shootings...
If only assault weapons were forever banned...
If only so many lawmakers weren’t beholden to the NRA...
If only there weren’t so many guns and such easy access to them...
Then children could go to school; people could go to work and places of worship; and everyone could go to movies, stores, malls, concerts, dance halls, restaurants, and clubs without fear of being gunned down. If only...
Ginny Williams, retired teacher and professor
Oro Valley
Another one bites the dust
Bethany Mandel, a well-respected and oft-cited conservative commentator, was asked on CNN’s Inside Politics to define “woke.” She stumbled, hemmed and hawed. She had no idea, other than to correctly say, as she squirmed, “This is going to be one of those moments that goes viral.” She did try to make up something about how it refers to those who believe “We have to redo hierarchies to reduce the size of oppression.” When she realized she backed herself into a corner, she stopped.
She later emailed (presumably written by someone else), explaining, ‘A radical belief system suggesting that our institutions are built around discrimination, and claiming that all disparity is a result of that discrimination. It seeks a radical redefinition of society in which equality of group result (sic) is the endpoint, enforced by an angry mob.’
The irony here, by one more uninformed right-wing hypocrite is, she throws the word woke around like people use the word “the.” It’s in the dictionary, Bethany.
Sheldon Metz
Northeast side
Nashville shooting
The Nashville shooting is obviously the fault of the victims, the children and adults whose nickels and dimes could not begin to match the campaign contributions from the gun rights lobby. After all, is that not the goal of our legislators: get elected and then raise money to ensure they can continue to enjoy the power and prestige of office? No senator or congressman could possibly vote against assault weapons or for sensible gun control laws if that would endanger those campaign contributions from the NRA! The good of one’s constituents is nowhere near the importance of me and my party in a legislator’s eyes.
Oh, wait. A certain TV commentator says all the “victims” and their “grieving relatives” are actors. It’s all fake news. No problem! I can go pick up an assault rifle today. Might want to go quail hunting, you know.
Eleanor Arnold
Northeast side
Combination nomination
60-plus years as a registered Independent/Democratic voter is no reason to remain so if the Republicans can slate these two candidates in 2024. President Liz Cheney/Veep Megan McCain.
Diana Carolan
Northwest side
Real issues
Let’s face it, Republicans are more concerned with making business and the rich richer and the Democrats are more focused on people and environmental issues. Both state and federal governments are busy crafting useless bills banning books and restricting schools and voting rights instead of focusing on water and climate. The reason? It will cost money and some hardship getting used to the change, but it must be done for the good of all.
Remember the saying from the “greed is good” decade, “He who dies with the most toys (money) wins.”? Well, the reality is “He who dies with the most toys (money) is still dead.” The money makes no difference at all. Raising the tax rate on business and the wealthy is only reversing the cuts that were supposed to “trickle down” and never did. It is not punishment, but a reversal of a failed attempt to let society “do the right thing.”
Daniel Poryanda
Southeast side
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