A letter to the man who put Tucson on the map
Dear Lute,
Thank you.
Lute, you came to Tucson in 1983 to coach a basketball team, but instead, you built a community and a program. My dad bought season tickets the same year you started coaching, and he’s had them ever since because the Arizona basketball family welcomed him. Thank you.
Lute, you inspired me to play and love basketball. I spent countless hours in McKale Center watching hundreds of games, at your summer basketball camps, or just walking around during hot days in college. I have memories as long as I can remember about the energy, passion and pride of the Wildcat basketball community. Thank you.
Lute, you were the heart and soul. You started an annual program for players to spend the day with local Special Olympics athletes. Because my dad coached a team, I was able to tag along. What you said and did those days showed that being elite requires being humble. Being competitive requires being kind. Being a winning team requires a community. Thank you.
People are also reading…
Michelle Vock
Northeast side
Vote like democracy depends on it
Re: the Aug. 26 letter “Reasons to postpone presidential election.”
I feel that to postpone this election would be catastrophic for our country. In the last 3.5 years, we have seen our country torn apart by values that no American should accept. The hatred that this administration has spewed is revolting. No American should accept the destruction of nationalities that the administration has tried to accomplish.
By postponing this election, democracy as we know it will be eliminated and a dictatorship will be in its place. I remember World War II, with Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini totally controlling their countries. People died just because they were born a religion not accepted by their countries’ leader. News (radio, television and newspapers) was controlled by the government.
We cannot allow this to happen. Our lives depend on this election. Please vote; this is the most important election ever.
Elaine A. Halley
Northwest side
Presidential election can’t be postponed
Re: the August 26 letter “Reasons to postpone presidential election.”
The letter writer makes a ludicrous argument to justify postponing the presidential election until 2024. Just like Donald Trump, this gentleman lacks a basic understanding of the U.S. Constitution, the supreme law of the land. Article 2 of the Constitution limits the president and vice president to four-year terms. Further, the 20th Amendment states that their tenure ends on Jan. 20 at noon.
If I interpret the intent of our Founding Fathers and those who added the 20th Amendment (in 1933) correctly, that means that absent a 2020 presidential election, the reign of Trump/Pence would end on that date and the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, would be sworn in as president. Be careful what you wish for!
Jorge Tapia
Midtown
Systemic racism needs to be acknowledged
Re: the Aug. 26 Fitzsimmons op-ed “A Texas school district apologizes for my cartoon.”
Great opinion and analysis column about the Texas school district apologizing for your cartoon. Sadly, the closed-minded reaction of the parents, politicians and vice president of the National Fraternal Order of Police to your cartoon is one of the main reasons our country has systemic racism. No one is as blind as those who refuse to see, and systemic racism will be tamped down only when those who refuse to see open their mind and recognize systemic racism for what it is.
Hopefully, the junior high students in Wylie see systemic racism as a problem and part from their parents and politicians on this issue. In my opinion the teachers saw a chance to discuss with their students a topic of national importance and the school administration did support their teachers. It’s a sad day for education in Wylie, Texas, and likely in many other schools in the U.S.
Gary Kordosky
West side
Consider Perez,
Mendoza in LD11
Scientific data show COVID-19 is seven times more deadly than influenza, yet LD11 representatives Vince Leach, Mark Finchem, and Bret Roberts falsely claim, “COVID19 poses little or no risk to the general population,” and “the annual influenza outbreaks pose a far greater threat and danger.” Coming from out-of-state, these three politicians are out-of-touch and share extremist views that equate public health efforts with a “police state.”
If you’re unhappy that Trumpublicans failed to control Arizona’s pandemic, vote Dr. Felipe Perez for LD11 House representative and retired Marine JoAnna Mendoza for LD11 Senate. Each grew up in rural Arizona and worked hard to achieve their goals. Felipe Perez earned his way through medical school, became a family physician, and rose to leadership positions in community health. JoAnna Mendoza joined the Marines at age 17, served in Iraq and Afghanistan, taught leadership as a drill instructor, and excelled in the military.
Perez and Mendoza care about health care, education, seniors, veterans and the environment. Vote for what matters.
Diana Alexander
Oro Valley
Biden has already forgotten Ferguson
In an interview with MSNBC, Joe Biden claimed there were no race riots during the last four years of the Obama administration, and that the National Guard was never called out. But Biden did not seem to remember that in fact there were several race riots back then and that the National Guard was called out several times. The riots, burning, and looting occurred in Ferguson, Baltimore, Oakland, New York City, Baton Rouge and Charlotte related to police officer killings of black men.
Remember Michael Brown and Freddie Gray? Apparently Biden does not. Perhaps because of some memory loss? Now he is blaming the current unrest across the country on Donald Trump, when most of the protesters and rioters are liberals and the rioting has been in primarily Democrat-run cities. Biden did not utter one word against the rioters and destruction during his convention speech. He should stay basemented.
Juan Santigo
Southwest side
Sensitive lands
damaged by wall
With the stroke of a pen, an unelected Washington bureaucrat, blind to local ranching culture, desert ecology, and a tourism-based economy, has waived 41 environmental laws to construct a border wall through environmentally sensitive lands in southeast Arizona’s Guadalupe Canyon and the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge. No project enacted in U.S. history has waived so many laws.
Already protected better and more economically by stationary and mobile electronic surveillance, this blatant waste of valuable tax dollars invites repeated destruction and repair after monsoon and winter floods (Guadalupe Creek, the Black Draw and Silver Creek), obliterates a pristine and revered natural landscape, and alienates neighbors by depleting natural water sources on which ranching and wildlife depend.
Border security, which we all desire, need not compromise the environment and local economy. One wonders: Is this project just a monument to bureaucratic bungling, or is it propelled by general meanness or some as yet uncovered kleptocracy in a process exempt from federal procurement rules and competitive bidding?
Diane Davidson
Douglas
Like Social Security and Medicare? Vote Kelly
For seniors in Tucson, the Trump administration’s proposal to cut Social Security and Medicare and its attempts to repeal protections for Americans with preexisting conditions are really frightening.
My wife has three preexisting conditions; without Social Security, we couldn’t afford the insurance premiums or pay for her dialysis. Without Medicare, we would have nothing. In addition, while my wife pays $10 to $40 each for her 15 prescriptions in copays, I have three prescriptions from the VA and I only pay $8 each. It’s important that we address rising prescription drug prices, especially for Medicare patients, because that’s driving all our costs up.
We need leaders in Washington who protect these programs and lower prescription costs for seniors. In the U.S. Senate race, only Mark Kelly has promised to defend Social Security and lower drug prices — that’s why I’m voting for Mark on Nov. 3. Join me in electing an independent leader who fights for everyday Arizonans and vote for Mark.
Henry Trejo
Midtown
Biden will cave
for Medicare for All
Democrats on the left like Bernie Sanders and vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris support Medicare for All, which would eliminate private health insurance. But do these people know that private health insurance subsidizes both Medicare and Medicaid? Physicians and hospitals receive way more in cost reimbursements from private insurers than from government-run Medicare and Medicaid.
That is why some decline these patients or place a cap on their percentage. Physicians and hospitals are willing to accept Medicare and Medicaid patients because their lower reimbursements are offset by higher paying private health insurers. Medicaid eligibility was greatly expanded under the ACA.
The American Hospital Association Annual Survey of Hospitals revealed that Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement fell $76.8 billion short of the actual costs of treating beneficiaries in 2017. Think of the effects if Medicare for All were implemented. How many physicians and hospitals would cease operations because of the financial losses?
And Joe Biden will not be able to withstand pressures from the left to implement Medicare for All.
Tomas Ortega
North side
President pits
neighbor vs. neighbor
During the 2016 campaign, I disagreed with the MAGA platform, considering it hateful, small and backward. When Donald Trump was elected, I worried but believed constitutional checks and balances would prevent him enacting all of that vision.
Sadly, the administration ignored conventional policy-making and simply did whatever they wanted.
Our legislative branch has acted as a lapdog. Others who oppose this president are summarily fired or otherwise silenced. Absurd rules have been implemented without oversight via tweet or executive order.
But worse is Trump’s lack of respect for Americans. Presidents are elected to represent all. Yet Trump screams at those who disagree, disrespects those with different views, encourages divisiveness and violence, and tweets hateful and spiteful comments at other Americans. He pits his loyalists against other Americans, neighbor against neighbor.
We are reaping the America Trump carefully sowed: full of hate and divisiveness. Please think about this when you vote this fall.
Melinda Sims, USAF, retired
Northwest side
Trump has corrupted every level of gov’t
I am a physician of 40 years who previously ran a county tuberculosis clinic and was involved in care of AIDS patients who is utterly overwhelmed by the magnitude of the Trump administration’s corruption in its dismantling and deconstruction of vital federal institutions and agencies including the State Department under Mike Pompeo; the Department of Justice under Bill Barr; and most heinously, the CDC and its degeneration into a puppet agency that recently changed its guidelines. Asymptomatic individuals exposed to COVID were deemed no longer requiring testing to help reduce COVID cases to benefit Trump.
It was bad enough that Donald Trump got reporting of COVID metrics removed from the CDC to a privately awarded multimillion-dollar contract with tele-tracking technologies, but now Trump cronies including Alex Azar at HHS and Stephen Hahn at FDA got CDC guidelines changed behind the back of Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Trump’s RNC was a propaganda pageant filled with lying, race baiting, repeated violations of the Hatch Act, and we are now witnessing the corruption in hyper-concentrated form.
Marilyn Orenstein
North side
Americans don’t want government health care
The last thing most Arizonans want is for the government to take over our health-care system, letting politicians make the critical decisions that should stay between patients and their doctors.
That’s why it’s time to tell Congress that the public option and Medicare for All policy proposals are not an option for health care. Some estimates project that just paying for the public option could require an increase in payroll taxes of $2,300 per year for the average worker.
That is not a cost most families can bear right now, especially if it doesn’t lead to better care. Unfortunately, a public option would undermine the hospitals and emergency rooms serving our communities by slashing payments to doctors and other health-care providers.
These policies could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, potentially putting them out of business for good.
We all want better health care, but government-controlled health care is not the way to get it.
Cathy Coronado
North side