Tucson Speaks Out: Feb. 4 letters of the day

I can’t help but comment on the bicycle-rider issues written about in the Star. There are many traffic laws and most are totally disregarded by half of Tucson motorists. Half of Tucson drives defensively and the other half drives offensively. It is quite a life-threatening game. A writer says that bicycle riders are legally allowed to ride in the middle of a street if they feel it is not safe to ride single file. You are risking your life because it’s legal? That’s pretty naive and dangerous. Another consideration when riding a bicycle in the middle of any road, other than the obvious danger, is that the cars and trucks pay registration fees to ride in the middle of the road. If you insist on risking your life, at least pay exorbitant registration fees and get a license plate. The license plate will help law enforcement identify you as you ride down the middle of the road with speeding cars and trucks. That’s legal.

Richard Bechtold

West side

Booing Bronny comes off as bush

We love Wildcat basketball and the McKale passion.

Still, it was disappointing on Wednesday (Jan. 17) to witness the behavior of some fans, who booed USC’s Bronny James every time he touched the ball.

Yes, Bronny James was born into privilege as the son of LeBron, the world’s greatest basketball player. I get that. But he’s also a teenager who clearly works hard, comports himself well, and is trying to find his way.

Last summer, Bronny James suffered cardiac arrest on a basketball court, and could have died. It’s remarkable that he’s alive, and now competing at this highest level. We should support his journey.

When the big screen showed Kevin Durant, in the crowd to support Bronny, his face told the story. This was bush.

Wednesday, Wildcat Nation celebrated people fighting cancer, as we should. So, we cheer the cancer survivors, but boo the heart attack victims? Respectfully, we can do better.

Dave Perry

Oro Valley

State and religion

Re: the Jan. 25 article “Freedom, viewed as distance”

Mr. Farrington’s rebuttal to Jim Douthit’s opinion piece reveals much about him.

In his second sentence he makes it clear that he believes Libertarians and Libertarian philosophy are bad even though it was the basis for our founding.

His rebuttals to Douthit’s points are following:

He wants a distance between the state and religion implying limiting religious expression in the public domain, the worse being evangelical Christianity but not environmentalism or communism.

He wants to restrict private gun ownership, since all guns could be considered “assault weapons”. He wants to control speech in public and the press by people in authority, who will decide what is hateful. He wants violent mobs, who have his values be considered peaceful and those with other values treated differently. Only once when he supports the Bill of Rights does he support in any way personal freedoms. I know Jim Douthit personally and his assumption he is evangelical or MAGA is wrong. Like democrats, he labels Jim just to put down those he disagrees with.

Ken Smalley

Midtown

Fred and Mary Trump’s failure

Re: the Jan. 29 article “Fred and Mary Trump’s failure”

Let’s take one at a time. The first — a compelling, beautifully written opinion deeply personalizing the decorum and civility we all expect from our parenting and what we have in Donald Trump. For what it’s worth, the apple is not falling too far from the Fred Trump tree. Roger Stone, convicted felon facing prison and pardoned by Donald Trump, said Fred was a financier for the John Birch Society and confidant of JBS founder Robert Welch. Stone said Donald Trump was more John Birchier than the John Birch Society. The JBS can be credited as the root structure for the current MAGA Republicans who mix violent and apocalyptic conspiracy messaging with grassroots organizing.

How would Donald likely react to what Biden faces daily — crisis after crisis after crisis? Donald is absolutely unpredictable, our military’s worst nightmare. Lord knows what would have happened his last term without people loyal to the constitution reining him in.

Too many anti-Trump letters? My God in heaven what have we wrought.

Rick Rappaport

Oro Valley

Conflating opinions with facts

Last week an east side resident stated that young voters won’t vote for President Biden because of his age. She believed they were concerned he would not serve the entire term and they didn’t have confidence in VP Harris. Maybe they are concerned over current physical and cognitive declines. In an NBC news report, by Bianca Seward, young voters state they won’t be voting for Biden again due to unkept promises such as student loan forgiveness, codifying Roe v Wade, insufficient moves on climate change and most recently his handling of the Israel-Hamas war.

The resident additionally opined that young voters don’t realize that if Trump is elected, they will live under a dictatorship and that Trump intends to stay in office until he dies. Well, I give more credit to the children of our future. They have knowledge at their fingertips and can look up the 1951 22nd amendment. No president can change that.

Suzan Herzig

Oro Valley

Saving water

Re: the Jan. 30 letter “Brilliant water ideas”

I completely agree with this letter writer. It is insanity to construct a desalination plant in a foreign country. The Mexican government has little control over the cartels so this might just become another battleground.

Desalination creates waste salt deposits and disposal plans are never mentioned. The Sea of Cortez is already in fragile condition.

We need to solve our water problems at home. We could require low water landscaping for homes, apartments, businesses. We could require installation of water saving devices on all new construction. We could offer subsidies for retrofits on older homes. We could clamp down on overdraft pumping by agriculture. And yes, we need to get started on “toilet to tap” recycling of waste water. Isn’t that what NASA does on the space station?

Jan Foiles

West side

Reauthorize the Read Act

In the United States, we are lucky enough to have public education programs that nurture student’s education which in turn produces generations of leaders and economic growth. While we show appreciation for educators in our own country, we have to acknowledge the fact that nearly ⅔ of 10-year olds globally are unable to read (UNICEF). These children are not being given the basic necessary skills to become life-long learners. Children globally deserve the foundational educational necessities. Future wages increase an average of 10% for each year of school completed (World Bank). The READ Act ensures the U.S. government will continue to update and report on their strategy to improve foundational literacy and numeracy in basic education around the globe. On Nov. 6, the Senate passed the READ Act and sent it to the House of Representatives, where it has wide, bipartisan support, but awaits committee consideration and passage into law. We urge house members to use legislative measures in supporting children’s basic educational necessities.

Karina Garavito

Foothills

Coach VanDerveer

Having not seen any mention of it in the sports pages, I feel compelled to write this letter. Before the beginning of Sunday’s women’s basketball game at McKale center, Coach Barnes stood at mid court holding a bouquet of flowers to present to Coach VanDerveer for becoming the winningest collegiate basketball coach. Even knowing that our young, bench-depleted Wildcat team would likely be routed by a superior Stanford team and coach, it felt good to be in McKale at that moment standing and applauding with the rest of the crowd for Coach VanDerveer’s accomplishment. It was a class act. Well done, coach.

Dewey Bidwell

Northeast side

What if? Really?

Re: the Jan. 31 letter “What if?”

Sir, Trump was president for four years. He ran on a promise to “rip the scab off the festering pool of corruption in DC” (AKA “drain the swamp”). He had his chance, but the only things he drained were our standing in the world and our national bank account. He sowed discord, dissension, and hatred in our country, added more to the national debt than any previous president, praised Putin and Kim and other dictators, incited an insurrection against Congress, and basically committed treason several times while in office. And you want to give him another chance to do more of the same? Really? Why on earth would you think that giving him four more years would make him behave any differently? Did you miss the part where he promised to destroy our Constitution and execute people who disagree with him?

We’ve suffered enough grief from this pathological liar. Never again!

Klara Cserny

Southwest side

Geographic isolation or cultural seclusion

The suggestion by Board of Regents member and University of Arizona (UA) Interim CFO that the UA’s “geographic isolation” is somehow part of the current budget problem is nonsense and further evidence that the Board of Regents and Robbins are not the team needed to fix the problem. Southern Arizona, home to the UA, has been a vibrant center of international business and academic excellence for decades with a rich multi-cultural history — all without the fiscal mismanagement of the Robbins Administration. Arnold’s comment speaks more to the Board of Regent’s cultural seclusion than of UA’s geographic isolation.

Sheldon Clark

Vail

Shame on you, Tom Horne

As a former educator, I am appalled at SPI Tom Horne’s inclusion of PragerU curricula in Arizona public schools. If Horne — and others of a similar mindset — are embarrassed/disturbed/uncomfortable by American history, the key outcome is to learn from history’s mistakes and not to repeat them.

But to whitewash history — and worse, to distort it — and then present it to children in an academic setting as “truth” (via animated videos) is a gross mismanagement of public trust, an insult to educators, and dangerously deceptive to students.

While culpability falls on PragerU for creating content that distorts the truth of American history, the blame falls on Tom Horne for inserting curricula that peddle disinformation to children.

My hope is that parents and educators statewide will stand up, speak out, and reject these curricula.

Ashley Sweeney, M.Ed Curriculum and Instruction

Oro Valley

Border policy

I hope that voters remember in November that when given an opportunity to actually enact bipartisan border policy (bipartisan means neither side gets what they want), Congressional Republicans, including our fearless representative Juan Ciscomani, decided to punt.

Why? Well like their cult leader Donald J. Trump, they don’t really care about policy but only scoring political points and getting down on bended knee to the Orange Menace.

Please remember this in November and elect a serious person, not a performance artist like Juan Ciscomani.

Michael Seibold

Midtown

Trump taunts!

Re: the Jan. 9 article “Trump taunts late Sen. McCain over ex-POW’s broken limbs”

While it pains me to give any ink featuring Donald Trump, I couldn’t ignore his latest rant regarding Senator John McCain. It should come as no surprise that Trump cannot let go of his hatred for one who many of us consider a national treasure, a bonafide hero and severely wounded warrior. Trump made fun of Senator McCain’s injuries at a recent speech in Iowa saying “he couldn’t get his arm up that day” referencing McCain’s vote on Obamacare. Trump isn’t fit for any public service role and that he can even consider mounting another run for the presidency speaks volumes about his delusional thinking. Trump continues to demonstrate how unfit he is for the highest office in the land. If he cared for any one other than himself he would go back to Mar-A-Lago and never access another platform to spew his hateful rhetoric.

Noreen Nelson

Foothills

AZ Legislature, let us choose

Re: the Jan. 27 article “Hear no, see no, speak no emissions.”

The writers of this op-ed have correctly pointed out that our Arizona legislature knows full well that measuring emissions will give evidence to those who might act to force compliance with federal laws. Some of our so-called freedom-loving elected officials have instead chosen to take away the choice of communities to act in their own best interest. Instead we are prevented from measuring emissions, acting on climate change, rejecting natural gas in new homes, or even eliminating plastic bags.

I support Senator Priya Sundareshan (LD18) who along with Senator Juan Mendez (LD8), have introduced SB 1225, legislation that will begin to peel back some of these infringements on Arizona citizens who wish to protect their environment, economy and health.

Edward Beshore

North side