Don’t let guns in classrooms
Texas allowed students to carry hidden guns and unless their diplomas are backed by a state-recognized test, such as an engineering or nursing registration, they are worth very little because anyone with half a brain knows that when facing a class with untold loaded guns, no professor is likely to fail anyone!
Arizona should not allow guns in the classroom.
Beverly Jean Tencza
Rio Rico
History lessons can be painful
Dear Friend, Sorry that your feelings are hurt as you learn more U.S. history.
Millions of Africans were kidnapped and offloaded here to be enslaved, beaten, maimed, raped and murdered by newly settled Europeans.
People here before those Europeans were killed (and scalped for bounties), relocated from ancestral lands, and given infected clothing and inferior food by the government charged with their welfare. Their lands were taken (and retaken if found more valuable than estimated) and their food supplies hunted into extinction to starve them.
Asians suffered near-slavery conditions while building America’s great railroads. The Chinese massacre in LA’s Chinatown was but one of hundreds that took place in dozens of cities.
Perhaps your hurt can be assuaged if you help provide jobs, quality health care, and educations to some of the people with real reasons to feel sad. Also, please reconsider your position on critical race theory; read for yourself the law-school-level original texts and not any media interpretations of it.
Alex Ward
Oro Valley
Enforce rules, Pima County!
Yes, the omicron variant is raging through our county. Yes, Dr. Heinz, face masks do work. Thanks for making “indoor closer than 6’ without a mask” illegal. With no penalty — no enforcement. Most stores have a “Mask Required” sign. I bet about 40% in these stores are unmasked. I even went to the Speedway (Oracle/Magee), no sign, not even the clerks were masked. This is just stupid! Either put some teeth in the law (as you should as the Pima County supervisors) or rescind it and let omicron rage freely in our county.
Thad Appelman
Northwest side
Sinema leads us backward
Open letter to Sen. Sinema:
Your support of the filibuster has befuddled many Arizonans.
Do you oppose filibuster elimination based on principle? What principle is that? It has been regularly invoked—since 1890—to impede legislation aimed at expanding democratic protections for abused minorities. The filibuster is not a time-honored custom but a time-worn relic of a dismal stain on democracy: racism.
The most far-reaching civil rights legislation of modern times, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, was stalled and nearly defeated by the filibuster until stalwart Republicans led by Everett Dirksen of Illinois stepped up to end debate. Regrettably, not a single Republican is stepping up this time. Your devotion to a principle of collegiality is matched by Republican defiance of it.
Senator: It is hypocritical to boast about support for civil rights while advocating a rule so distinctly identified with blocking it.
Stuart Brody
Nogales
Road upgrades are still needed
Re: The Jan. 26 article “RTA is not the city’s only option.”
While I sympathize with Mr. Cook’s view on the need to consider climate change and “social justice” in infrastructure planning, his view of “rapidly changing reality” is not correct. As much as he and others may want people in Tucson to abandon their cars, it will not happen for many years. The vast majority of the population still depends on their automobile to get around town and adding some more buses or extending the streetcar will not change that in the next 30 years. Electric cars will help the with environmental issues, but that still makes improving road infrastructure in RTA Next the major priority (including the city of Tucson). Setting aside some funds for transit and pedestrian improvements is good, but diverting significant funds from road improvement will only lead to a further economic decline in our region.
Donald Newman
West side
Put a leash on corporate greed
Re: the Jan. 23 article “Owner ups rent by 50%.”
As I read about carpetbaggers spiking rents again, I find myself asking this question: How many times in living history do we need to watch unregulated banking and real estate sharks destroy the economy in the name of their short-term profit before we realize corporate greed needs to be put on a very short leash?
David Reynolds
East side
We’ve become the Golden State
Tucson now has high real estate prices, high homelessness, high taxes and high crime rate.
If the Democratic city of Tucson wants to emulate the Democratic state of California, you made it.
Just remember that people are leaving California in droves.
Thomas Wenzel
East side
Free virus tests made in China
Biden previously announced that American households could receive four free at-home COVID antigen tests through the U.S. Postal Service. A total of 500 million would be available. What he did not say or probably even know is that many are made in China. On Jan. 13, the Biden administration awarded a $1.28 billion contract to iHealth Labs Inc. to provide 250 million test kits. The company is located in California, but the test kits come from China. ILabs is part of the Chinese company Andon Health Ltd. The communist government has blocked WHO investigators from conducting a thorough investigation in Wuhan of the origin of COVID. Early on, China covered up details about the virus and did not share the information with other countries. Since the virus began, communist China has made billions in profits from selling PPEs as in test kits, face masks, gloves, etc. The Biden administration just added to their profits.
Terry Garland
East side
