Basketball refs
Reffing the last two minutes of a basketball game needs to be more computerized. The zebras are needed to decide if a foul is flagrant. Everything else, they take way too long. The way it is, all three referees have to watch multiple camera angles of every questionable play. And in the last two minutes, they review everything. Six minutes of standing around to conclude there are 39 seconds on the clock instead of 40.
In tennis, the computer zips through the video lickity-split. It decides immediately — the ball’s out! Whatever the basketball refs are supposed to look at, a computer can do the same thing, except 100 times faster. Automate the final two minutes. Get the game over!
Walter Ramsley
East side
Anti-filming bill
People are also reading…
SB 2319 is targeted against the filming of police in Arizona. It makes it illegal to film police within 8 feet of a police activity. This serves no purpose. If someone is already too close, that is already a violation. This law adds an extra penalty if you are recording at the same distance versus someone not recording, but the problem is if someone is too close to an officer, no matter if they are recording or not.
This makes as much sense as enhancing criminal penalties if someone is wearing a shirt or is reading a book that the officer does not like, but they are too close. The problem is the closeness of the person, not what activity they are doing. Nowhere has an act had enhanced criminal acts because the person is exercising a constitutional right, albeit too close to an officer. This is the result when you have a state legislature that is hostile to freedom of speech and have not thought out a bill’s impact.
Jerome McCollom
Downtown
Climate investments
Especially in light of this month’s ICPP Working Group III Report: Mitigation of Climate Change, there is every reason for the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act of 2021 to be foremost in political discussions as a means to counter the market volatility of fossil fuels so starkly exposed by COVID pandemic health measures and further exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Record-setting droughts, flooding, wildfires, heatwaves and cold-weather events are becoming more commonplace worldwide, impacting entire communities and regions with increasing severity.
Which Horseman of the Apocalypse are our elected officials waiting for, exactly? We must build for a carbon-free future, starting now, with every road project and legislative action. Far cheaper, by every measure, to prevent climate catastrophe and invest in actionable solutions than to continue funding the source of the problem while claiming that the transition is not affordable. Inaction only increases that price burden exponentially; from microplastics to greenhouse gases, let’s break this destructive cycle of fossil fuel co-dependency.
Camille Kershner
East side
Tracking migrants
What? Giving cell phones to people who crossed our border undocumented “so we can track them”? Aside from being over-generous to those who enter our country undocumented, what if they just throw the phone away? Or sell it?
How about an ankle bracelet to track them — and if they ever happen to be caught without it, immediate deportation.
Matthew Scully
Sahuarita
American Rescue Plan health care
As a public health professional and state representative, I know too many still don’t have access to affordable health coverage putting essential care out of reach. More problematically, some forgo care all together because they can’t afford it. No individual should have to make this choice.
According to a Gallup & West Health survey “Nearly one-third of Americans skipped needed medical care in the past three months due to cost, the highest reported number since the COVID-19 pandemic began.” We need solutions to address health care affordability now and legislators can work towards this by securing permanent health care subsidies. Nearly 90 thousand uninsured residents were made eligible for tax credit relief last year because of an expansion in the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).
We need Sens. Sinema and Kelly to lead on this. Without action, millions will face significant premium increases and the uninsured will grow. We cannot allow this to happen. Congress must act to make affordable care a reality.
Alma Hernandez,
state representative
for Legislative District 3
Downtown
Campaign promises
Karrin Taylor Robson wants to be governor of Arizona and is making campaign promises she will have no authority to keep. Not even finishing the border wall, or anything else can she promise. Does she know the laws of our state?
“Not on her watch”? Just watch and see.
Just sayin’!
Phyllis Bowcott
Northwest side
UNICEF store
I realize the UNICEF store in Tucson represents all nations. However, at this time of conflict in Ukraine caused by the cruel, dictatorial, inhumane leader of Russia, I believe that products from Russia should be taken off the shelf.
I have addressed my concerns two different times over the period of six weeks. Nothing has been changed. Now is the time to stop supporting Russia. We can no longer appease inhumanity. I will only shop at this store when Russian products are removed.
Marilyn Levy
East side
Where do you get your news?
Here’s a question for all you political junkies out there. Who is more dangerous?
The drug-addled son of a president trying to use his family name to get rich or the playboy son of an ex-president, having used his family name to get rich, working to prevent the duly elected president from taking office?
I suspect your answer depends on where you get your news.
Steven Brown
Midtown
(Un)biased news sources
Re: the April 7 article “What if Fox News viewers watched CNN?”
In light of recent pieces on the Opinion pages regarding how watching a different cable news network can change one’s thinking, and how there are no unbiased news sources any more, I’d like to offer the following:
Ad Fontes Media is a company whose mission (according to their website) is “to make news consumers smarter and news media better.” To this end they rate news sources for reliability and bias, and publish a “Media Bias Chart” that shows where various sources (Fox, CNN, etc.) lie on both a bias axis and a reliability axis.
I urge everyone to take a look at the current chart to see where their favorite source lies. You can search the online interactive chart for sources that are not automatically displayed.
Dave Peterson
Midtown
