Being “woke”
An individual who is “woke” is aware of systemic injustices and prejudices, especially those that affect ethnic, racial, and sexual minorities. It also means understanding America’s problems and resolving them.
How can one legislate if they refuse to know the real problem? Taking action to combat injustices is the next step in being “woke,” and the most powerful way to promote positive change.
Defaming or criticizing liberal progressive orthodoxy, especially when they promote policies that welcome or embrace ethnic, racial, or sexual minorities, is pure bunk.
“Dozers,” those who are asleep or in a permanent trance, use woke to mean “I’m sorry and ignorant and have no idea of what you are saying.” Unfortunately, Dozers have supporters.
People are also reading…
In light of police brutality incidents, proposed cuts to Medicare and Social Security, education, mass killings, gun laws, abortion, etc., it’s imperative to stay woke, while others sleep in a stupor to protect our rights and push for meaningful change.
Sheldon Metz
Northeast side
Murder by gun and mental health
The GOP claims that the catastrophic number of gun deaths in this country is a mental health issue, not a problem of too many and too powerful guns. Europe also has mental health problems, but with a minuscule number of deaths by gun.
The difference? … GUNS!
Alan Rubens
Northeast side
What gives?
April 27 at 8:35 a.m. I bought gas at Circle K in Tombstone for $3.69/Gal. Two hours later I bought gas at Circle K in Tucson for $4.79/Gal. What gives?
Richard Aufmuth
Foothills
Budget limit
I send one of my children to college, providing a credit card with a $5,000 limit that is intended to cover incidentals throughout the year. I receive the first statement and find he has maxed out the credit card. What do I do?
First, I pay the bill. Subsequently, I put the student on a strict and onerous budget. I tell the student that if he overspends, I hope he likes ramen for the rest of the year.
On a national scale, this is exactly why Kevin McCarthy wants the Biden Administration to provide reduce budget plan before the budget limit is increased. It is obvious that without strict spending limits, the Administration will continue to distribute our hard-earned tax money with no regard to where it is coming from. Just print more.
The Administration has demonstrated that they will not rein in spending because much is used to buy votes and satisfy the demands of the most radical in their party.
Loyal M. Johnson Jr.
Oro Valley
2nd Amendment
What if the 2nd Amendment read:
“A well informed Electorate, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and read books, shall not be infringed.”
Imagine.
Sheldon Clark
Vail
Misses the mark
Re: the April 28 letter “Gun culture.”
This letter misses the mark. It states “video games in the hands of children in their most formative years normalize gun violence.” Children world-wide play violent video games, yet there have been over 145 mass shootings in the U.S. in 2023.
The writer states “TV and movies glamorize gun violence.” These TV shows and movies are shown world-wide, yet in 2023 over 200 people in the U.S. have died in mass shootings.
Finally: “Today’s rap music is filled with hate and gun violence.” People all over enjoy rap music, yet in the U.S since 2015, over 19,000 people have been shot and wounded or killed in mass shootings. Over 600 people killed and over 2,700 wounded in 2022 alone.
If video games, TV shows and movies, and rap music were the problem, why isn’t the rest of the world suffering?
The problem is “… free and easy access to guns and unfettered civilian access to weapons of war.”
Stephen Nodine
East side
Collective delusion
Several hundred years ago in this nation, many women were accused of being witches. The accusers were so sure of their convictions that people were put to death as a result. But the paranoia about these women was delusional.
When large segments of society suffer from this sort of delusion, it has been called collective delusion. This phenomenon occurs more commonly in authoritarian regimes, where millions get sucked into the delusions of a delusional leader. The only truth recognized is that of the leader, with everything else being discarded.
With our rise of authoritarian politics here in the U.S., we are seeing a rise in the hateful, delusional paranoia known as collective delusion. Those being attacked are considered the wretched enemy and every tool necessary will be used to vanquish them.
The use of the term Trump derangement syndrome (TDS) is being used as a tool to punish the modern day witches for their evil ways. But the term, TDS is not real and using it is delusional.
Steven Rasmussen
Foothills
Rosemont mine
The problem with the Rosemont mine is our current mining law was passed in 1872. At that time there was no better higher value of any piece of land then to make it a mine. The 1977 mining law requires company’s to minimize environmental damage and reclaim the land. That still leaves mining as the highest value use of any piece of land.
In Southern Arizona the aquifer that supplies water and sustains our ecosystem has no value under current law. Rosemont will dig pits large enough to physically disrupt the aquifer while simultaneously pumping vast amounts of groundwater. Planned use of CAP water to “offset” that pumping, a poor idea to begin with, is no longer feasible with CAP cut backs.
Our laws need to change so that land and water that sustains our environment, in our case a large desert city, take priority in being the higher value use of our desert lands.
William Garrity
Foothills
Price setting legislation is bad for Arizona
Dear editor,
My father has suffered from cancer for a long time, and I have taken on the role of serving as his primary caregiver.
Unfortunately, the Biden Administration has made it a priority to focus on price-setting policies that could further harm medication development. There are other ways we can lower the out-of-pocket costs for patients without curbing the hope of new treatments and cures for people like my dad.
Pharmacy benefit managers pocket rebates that manufacturers issue, instead of passing them back to patients. Even worse these middlemen can deny access to certain medications and treatments.
Right now, the HELP Copays Act has been recently introduced to address these issues and ensure that pharmacy benefit managers put patients first. This bipartisan legislation should not be difficult to implement, and there really is no excuse to let pharmacy benefit managers continue to manipulate the medical market for their own profits.
James Spadafore
East side
The time is now
I served on a work group tasked with crafting content for Arizona’s State Plan on Alzheimer’s and other dementias back in 2016. I was chosen because of my personal connection to the disease — both of my parents had dementia.
This plan has yet to be implemented. Tick, tick, tick.
Meanwhile, the enormous impact of Alzheimer’s and other dementias grows, yet the Department of Health Services has neither dementia-specific staff nor programs in place to support families, caregivers, businesses and communities — especially in underserved areas (a particular focus of the Arizona State Plan).
I urge Gov. Katie Hobbs and legislative leadership to include the following in the new state budget. First, update and implement the State Plan. Second, allocate funding for two full-time dementia-specific professional staff positions at DHS. Third, fund a statewide public awareness campaign explaining Alzheimer’s life-altering effects on caregivers, the workplace, families, and health and legal systems.
We can’t wait any longer. Tick, tick, tick.
Jodi Goalstone
Foothills
Defending tax cheats?
Republicans have recently passed their proposed debt ceiling legislation that includes many items including cuts for veteran’s benefits, food stamps, Medicaid and funding for the IRS. Juan Ciscomani, representing District 6 in the U.S. House of Representatives was one of the 217 Republicans who voted for this debt ceiling legislation.
Are we, Representative Ciscomani’s constituents to conclude that he wants to take away IRS funding that would be used to go after tax cheats? And this from the party of law and order? Does Ciscomani support legislation that allows people who are in essence stealing money from other honest taxpayers, then rewarding these cheaters rather than providing funding for basic food and medical coverage for the working poor and those without insurance? Rewarding tax cheats or helping the hungry? Which is it Representative Ciscomani? Your constituents would love to hear your defense of this vote.
Fran McNeely
Northeast side
Who cares?
A recent letter told us that President Joe Biden and the Democratic party “care zero about the little people.” The supposition must follow that it’s Republicans who do care. I cannot stop laughing.
How many of you little people have benefitted from the huge tax cuts for the super-wealthy and big corporations? Has your family benefited from climate change denial, public school defunding, from voter suppression measures? Republicans don’t want you voting, unless it’s for them.
Women, do you like Republicans decreeing you must give birth, even if raped? How caring! Who benefitted from the lies and misinformation spread about COVID? Maybe some of you lost loved ones in part due to this misinformation and science denial. Republicans vowed to destroy President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which provided me affordable health insurance prior to Medicare. Thank you, Democrats!
Let’s hear from all the little people who feel Republicans truly care about us. I doubt the Star will need to hire extra staff to handle the influx of testimonials.
Deb Klumpp
Oro Valley
When?
When will the “sane” gun owners, the “sane” politicians, and the responsible gun manufacturers (if any exist) finally step forward to propose and help enact legislation to help protect the public from their less sane gun-worshipping counterparts? Or don’t you care?
Guy Brunt
West side
Personality politics
Talk is better than war. Kennedy beat Nixon. Personality beat experience. Viet Nam was France’s colony. Kennedy was shot. Johnson wanted to show America that Democrats were not soft on Communism. North Vietnam is still communist. There are 58,000 names on a black wall.
If Nixon was president there would have been no Viet Nam War. Nixon met Mao, who killed more people than Hitler and Stalin. China was to be a buffer between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., and with trade, would become more open to democracy and open to the world. It did — for a while.
Now Xi is dictator just as Putin. Teddy Roosevelt’s dictum still works, “Speak softly, but carry a big stick.” Study the success or failure of parities agendas. Publish agendas in newspapers. Have candidates debate like Lincoln and Douglas.
Eddie Mesko
Vail
Mandate training & testing for gun ownership
I believe the lives of my children and my neighbors are more valuable than my right to own guns, and I believe most Americans agree with me. I feel we’re going in the wrong direction on gun control and we are failing our children, time and again. Not everyone is healthy enough to own a gun, and more guns lead to more violence.
In 2017 guns became the biggest injury-based killer of children and young adults (ages 1 to 24) in the U.S.A., Guns kill more children each year than auto accidents. More children die by gunfire in a year than on-duty police officers and active military members. In the States with more gun ownership, there’s more homicide.
We don’t allow a Driver’s license without passing a test. Why permit gun ownership without being tested in proper use and safe handling? This, along with red flag laws, and violent offender exclusions, will save lives.
Dr. Joshua Reilly
North side
Guns, guns, guns
In light of the current rash of individual and mass shootings, I have become afraid to attend theaters, concerts, churches, and to visit schools. I have worked with the seriously-mentally ill for forty years and know this is not a mental-health problem as much as it is an American gun proliferation problem.
Guns and even assault rifles are too easy to buy, steal or borrow. A gun in the hands of an irate, vindictive person with a chip on his shoulder is a walking homicide. I’m sick at heart at this country’s obsession with the power a gun imparts. If the fact that we are murdering our school children isn’t enough to overhaul our gun-ownership regulations, what will it take?
Those who wrote the much-misinterpreted Second Amendment are spinning in their graves-and by the way-not many good men with guns have stopped a bad man with a gun.
Lollie Butler
Midtown
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