Tucson Speaks Out: Feb. 1 letters of the day

Coverage of the annual GOP meeting highlighted a huge missed fundraising opportunity. Although the press was not permitted to attend the event, it sounds like the meeting provided entertainment value on par with Friday Night Smackdown; plus previews of fun to come at Arizona Corporation Commission meetings.

Let the voting public in on the fun — charge admission!

Welcome to the Big Top.

Sheldon Clark

Vail

No genocide, just war

To all of you supporting Gaza and Hamas there is much to consider. Jews have lived in Israel for thousands of years and long before the advent of Islam. Genocide is the willful and deliberate extermination of a people as in 6 million Jews sent to the gas chambers. It is not civilian casualties due to conducting a war. Israel has done more than any country to minimize this by broadcasting warnings to civilians in areas they are going to attack.

On Oct. 7 Hamas attacked Israel, its civilians, not the army, killing hundreds. They and protesters around the world scream “river to the sea.” Do you even know what that means? According to Hamas it means ridding Israel of all Jews by any means necessary. Now that’s genocide.

Much is made of civilian casualties. There are always civilian casualties in a war. A previous letter called the Palestinian casualties unprecedented! Have they not heard of Hiroshima or the allied bombing of Germany leveling most major cities in WWII?

Dennis Abrams

Northwest side

Something rotten in Denmark (or at the UA)?

Re: the Jan. 28 article “Prominent Tucsonans back UA president”

The Star’s front-page headline revealed an impressive level of support among community and business leaders for embattled UA President Robert Robbins. However, a quote within that article from one such prominent supporter was somewhat disconcerting: “We’re real prejudiced ... We don’t know the ins and outs of the financials” and further asserts confidence that “they will fix it,” presumably referring to Robbins and his administration. However, is such confidence justified in light of multiple recent incidents/scandals (e.g., the murder of a renowned professor on campus, the apparent not-so-real “firing” of the CFO over “miscalculations” in the school’s financials of over $100 million, and the resulting cutbacks in faculty hiring, etc., etc.)? One doesn’t need to be a UA Shakespeare scholar or student to detect a scent of something “rotten in Denmark.”

Walter Cooney

Green Valley

Cruel and very unusual

The horror of Alabama’s nitrogen gas execution cannot be overstated.

State officials said that inmate Kenneth Smith would lose consciousness within seconds of inhaling nitrogen and would die within minutes.

Wrong. Instead, what followed was cruel and unusual punishment forbidden by the U.S. Constitution’s 8th Amendment. It was tantamount to a fatal waterboarding session that took 22 minutes.

While Smith was fully awake, he writhed and shook in torture and shock, pulling against his restraints as his body twisted to get oxygen. They might as well have put a plastic bag over his head. It was a cruel and appalling execution by asphyxiation.

Meanwhile, in an alternate universe, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall declared that “What occurred last night was textbook.”

Waterboarding has been classified as one of the cruelest forms of torture. Execution by nitrogen should be declared the same.

Peter Bakke

SaddleBrooke

Starter homes

Re: the Jan. 30 article “Lawmakers push ‘starter home’ bills”

Because typical houses are out of reach for many, it is being proposed that cities allow smaller starter homes to be developed. But those homes’ designs MUST consider human dignity. Squeezing more houses onto a lot by reducing their size and the size of the lots they sit on is not a solution to our housing affordability problem. Yes, let’s build smaller houses but don’t take away the whole point of home ownership by eliminating privacy. So you own your home but you can hear your neighbor snoring or flushing their toilet? No. There is no dignity, no pride of ownership in that situation. Lots should not be any smaller than 5,000 sf. Let’s create communities of separate single-family homes with actual useful yards instead of giving developers more power to further erode society by forcing us to live in rat mazes.

Michael House

North side

Fever dreams in LD17

My state representative, Republican Cory McGarr, like his other ultra-right wing LD17 colleagues Justine Wadsack and Rachel Jones is manufacturing his own facts.

He plans to launch legislation removing President Biden from the Arizona ballot by claiming that Biden is leading an insurrection.

It is a ridiculous notion concocted by Trump worshipers somewhere other than Arizona. That leadership based in Mar-a-Lago has given McGarr marching orders to retaliate for Colorado’s and Maine’s plans to boot former President Donald Trump from their ballots.

Like Trump, McGarr is embracing the renowned advice of Republican strategist Steve Bannon to inundate us with disinformation, aiming to desensitize us to genuine concerns.

McGarr needs to be replaced this November by Democratic candidate Kevin Volk, a good man who will not flood our legislative zone with ridiculous bills like this.

Cheryl Bakke

SaddleBrooke

Immigration tutorial, please

Many recent letters to the editor have expressed opinions on the border crisis. I, for one, have only a vague understanding of U.S. laws regarding immigration and asylum, of the processes by which our laws are implemented, and of our international agreements and responsibilities regarding asylum and refugees.

During the Trump administration, more than 90% of the proposals to handle the crisis were judged illegal by the courts. The Biden administration has used multiple executive orders to try to address the situation without success. It’s easy to see these results, but more difficult to understand them without knowing the laws and how the system works.

Our letters and discussions about proposed changes would be greatly aided by a series of articles in the Star explaining the laws and details of the system. Five second sound bites are not very helpful.

Barbara Hall

Midtown

Athletics of golden parachuting

The U of A has demonstrated “The Athletics of Golden Parachuting” with the ABOR and Administration approved coaching teams of Mackovic, Rodriguez, Sumlin — who, when leaving, after demonstrating incompetence, flew away with millions that could have been used for ... EDUCATION (sorry, strike that ... what does education have to do with winning teams?). If we must keep athletics (and we should), let’s lower the stakes (and the costs). Since the “Conference of Champions” (Pac-12) has now been dissolved, let’s join the Mountain West or some other regional conference where “student athletes” don’t have to fly across America to play, fans can visit away games and the athletic department doesn’t have to borrow multi-millions. Sports will still be fun to play and to watch and the university can re-assume the role for which it was intended, to educate our young people at reasonable cost.

Dennis Winsten

Northeast side

The janitor at the U of A

I went to the University of Arizona from 1969 through 1972, graduating with a degree in BPA, or Business & Public Administration. I worked 30 hours a week while taking between 15 and 18 hours of classes each semester.

Classes would be at 7:40, 8:40, 9:40, 10:40, 11:40, throughout the day on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Tuesday and Thursday, the hours were different.

At the 7:40 class, I saw the landscapers doing their work. During the classes that day, I saw my professors, and at the last class of the day, I saw the janitor.

I did not see any provosts, adjuncts, deans, councilors, advisors, department heads, or department behinds. I did meet with Swede Johnson one time as he was personal friends with my parents.

I’m a little confused as to what has happened over the years.

Edward LeGendre

East side

Pass bipartisan border bill

The Senate is working on a bipartisan bill for increased border security with defense aid to the Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. We know the bill will have funding for the hiring of more than one thousand Border Patrol and Customs agents. Several hundred more asylum/immigration judges would be funded. The bill contains tough new executive powers in law to shutdown the border during sudden emergency human surges. Law enforcement in Arizona desperately needs this bipartisan border security bill to fight human smuggling criminal cartels south of the border.

Representative Juan Ciscomani and other Republicans from Arizona have been criticizing President Biden about border issues for a long time. So Republican Representatives from Arizona need to work with Democratic House leaders with a dozen or so Republican House members on a discharge petition process to bring this Senate bipartisan bill to the floor for a prompt vote to pass it for presidential signature into law. Our Arizona Representatives work for the taxpayers of Arizona NOT for Donald Trump.

Kyle Stoutenburg

Sierra Vista

In Mideast, we must combat poverty

Re: the Jan. 31 article “About 40 Guardsmen wounded”

Upon reading the article titled by David Wichner, I couldn’t help but think about the root cause of many conflicts occurring in the Middle East — poverty.

You see, poverty creates a tricky situation. When you aren’t able to put food on the table for your family, you’re forced to do anything you can to do so. As such, many turn to joining militant groups that offer a lucrative wage that can allow the poverty-stricken to receive the essentials. And that, in turn, fuels crime and violence.

Poverty is also a generational cycle. If your parents join militant groups to feed you, even though you might afford to eat, that doesn’t mean you’ll have the opportunities to break the cycle. The U.S. should prevent 25,000 children under age five from dying each day due to this reality.

Aditya Sehgal

Downtown

Rillito Downs mismanagement

I was involved back in the 1980s to preserve historic Rillito Downs rather than tear it down and convert the property to soccer fields. Created in the 1940s, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the track is where thoroughbreds and quarter horses have raced for decades. Indeed, racing there is truly a Tucson tradition and cities like Tucson need to keep and celebrate their traditions.

To read recently in the Star that racing will not take place in 2024 at Rillito Park because its foundation had not submitted to the Board of Supervisors the 2021, 2022 and 2023 audits is outrageous. Foundation president Ed Ackerley states the accounting firm was “bogged down.” What? The blame squarely falls on Ackerley and his board for not seeing that annual audits were submitted as required. What mismanagement. Let’s hope the board addresses its shortcomings and does everything it can to see that horse racing returns to Rillito in 2025.

Phineas Anderson

Catalina

Trump’s hates ...

Re: the Jan. 29 article “22 anti-Trump letters in 6 days”

A recent letter to the editor complained about other letters to the editor: “Seven years of sickening diatribes of hate for another human being gladly published by the Star.” Let’s enumerate whom Trump has insulted repeatedly and so presumably hates: President Biden, Nancy Pelosi, E. Jean Carroll, Letitia James, Judge Arthur Engoron (and his law clerk), Stacey Abrams, Adam Schiff, John McCain, Michael Cohen, James Comey, George Conway, Robert Mueller (and members of his team), Mitt Romney, Pete Buttigieg, Hilary Clinton, Maxine Waters, Richard Blumenthal, Barak Obama, Fani Willis, Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer ... The list of insults to Joe Biden alone would fill 22 letters.

Robert Yanal

Foothills

Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce

The latest MAGA-fueled conspiracy theory accuses the NFL of rigging the Super Bowl so that the Kansas Chiefs would be one of the teams. Of course, they were one of the teams last year so it’s not hard to believe they are back this year. Their presence assures a spotlight on Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift. You remember Kelce. He did a commercial urging people to get vaccinated, a no-no in the MAGA-land. Worse yet, there’s Taylor who encourages her fans to register to vote and endorses Democrats. I have listened to right-wing radio commentators suggest that after the halftime show, the stadium lights will dim, a single spotlight will shine on Swift and Kelce as they endorse Biden. Can anything more surreal? The couple are living rent-free in millions of MAGA-conspiracists’ minds. It’s hard not to laugh.

Rick Smith

Foothills