Letters to the editor, Aug. 26

Responding to an unfair driving complaint

I'm a construction worker who lives in Dayton and drives a company truck into Carson every morning. Recently, someone wrote a letter to my boss saying I'm a threat to the safety of everyone who has to drive around me and I swerve in and out of traffic. Here's my response:

I'd like to say, there are people on the road in the mornings who sit in the fast lane, drive slower than the flow of traffic and are too rude and inconsiderate to get out of anybody's way. You are a danger on the highways because everybody has to go around you, and they are the same cars every morning. You people need to get a ticket for impeding traffic. We still have the freedom to drive 5 to 10 miles per hour over the speed limit. Are your lives that pathetic that you get joy out of making everybody mad in the mornings?

You also stated that you sent a copy of the letter to the Highway Patrol. The highway patrol love me. I pull right over, way off the road for their safety, and tell them to have a nice day after they give me my ticket. I have zero points on my driving record.

I'm not an inconsiderate driver. If somebody comes up behind me, I move right over to let them by. In fact, I prefer driving in the slow lane unless I'm passing somebody, which is the way it should be. Please practice some common courtesy on the highway.

Victor Bruno III

Dayton

Tired of the mud-slinging

As an Independent, I find it both amusing and sad to see the depths that these Presidential and Congressional races have sunk to. Shame on the Republicans and shame on the Democrats. They have made mud-slinging the major component of political discourse.

More specifically, it's the extremes. The conservatives and the liberals are mostly responsible, using PAC money to attempt to confuse the American electorate with partial truths and misrepresentations. I want to hear viable, workable solutions to our national problems, not sound bites and promises that if elected they will fix it. I want details.

Like Jack Webb on "Dragnet" use to say, "Give me the facts, just the facts," then I'll decide who can best do the job and whom will earn my vote. The candidates need to present their positions and platforms in a wholly truthful manner with no distortions, omissions or embellishments.

To both political parties: Stop the mud-slinging and start offering workable solutions that don't abandon our poor, our seniors, our working class or that bankrupt our country.

Gary F. Nigro

Carson City

Time to raise education achievement

As reported in the Nevada Appeal recently, the latest step in Nevada education reform has been taken. Nevada has been granted a waiver by the federal Department of Education excusing it from No Child Left Behind, a program too often manipulated by educational bureaucracies in order to evade its rigorous standards. With the waiver, the state must create a Nevada School Performance Framework that can "substantially raise the achievement of the lowest achieving students ..."

Raising the dismal achievement of the lowest achieving students will require a monumental effort. On the last National Assessment of Educational Progress in which Nevada participated in 2009, 76 percent of Nevada fourth graders struggled with reading. In a moment of extreme folly, the 2011 Legislature eliminated Nevada's participation in the NAEP, which is the only national monitor of comparative state academic achievement.

In June the Carson City School Board and superintendent agreed with the implementation of success for the ALL reading program, with its dubious research base and pattern of failure, in all the elementary schools. During the past five years, the number of Empire School third graders using SFA who read proficiently was less than 40 percent. In real numbers that means that close to 1,000 children moved on to fourth grade unable to read proficiently.

In the Aug. 14 Appeal Carson High School principal Ron Beck spoke of the need "to create more remediation classes."

Can we wonder why high school freshmen need language arts (reading) remediation?

Sharon Steele Kientz

Carson City

Dangerous dogs on the loose on Hells Bells Road

Monday evening, my wife and I returned home on Hells Bells Road near Fifth Street after dinner at around 8 p.m. We found our cat dead just off our rear patio. The cat was not torn apart as coyotes would do for food, but simply lifeless with blood and fur about the area.

I've seen this before and it is typically caused by dogs that "play" with the cat until the cat no longer presents a challenge - when it is dead. Needless to say, we were upset. I grabbed my shovel to put our friend to rest and told my wife to be careful because dogs like these typically return to the scene for more "play". While I was preparing the grave my wife began screaming. The two large black dogs returned and were approaching her growling and showing their teeth. I ran over with the shovel and chased them off. The sheriff was notified.

These were not wild dogs; they were dogs encouraged to act wildly. Their owner may have been close by allowing them the freedom to roam during their walk or simply let them out the back door for their evening activity. In any event, these dogs were hunting as a pack and the owner most likely knew it and encouraged it.

If you come across two large black dogs in the Hells Bells area, walk the other way. If you see them loose, keep your distance and call the sheriff.

Tom Porada

Carson City

Election politics stink

First the Supreme Court decides that money equals free speech (Citizens United). Then the court came to the conclusion that lying is also free speech (Stolen Valor). There has been no shortage of money or lies in this election season. Now it is voter suppression. I would not be surprised for this court to find that disenfranchising voters is OK as well.

Is it really possible to buy an election based on untruths, half-truths and out and out lies? We are surely headed right into the toilet.

Warren Sprinkle

Carson City