Letters to the editor for Sunday, Oct. 22, 2017

Appeal’s coverage of smoke falls flat

Wednesday, Oct. 11, smoke from the fires in California was so bad I could not see Job’s Peak from my third floor apartment and could only see a smoky outline of the nearby hills. Yet Thursday’s paper reported yesterday’s (Wednesday’s) air quality index as “good.” What’s wrong with this picture? I’ve noticed this several times this year.

Don R. Drake

Carson City

Pledge of Allegiance lasts a lifetime

For Agnes Williams and David Knighton, you don’t seem to know the definition of the words “pledge” and “allegiance.” So here they are. Pledge — a promise, a vow, word of honor, commitment, assurance, oath, guarantee. Allegiance — giving promise to be loyal to a country.

When I gave my Pledge of Allegiance to the USA in 1950 it was a promise, vow, word of honor, commitment and assurance, oath and guarantee, that I would be faithful and loyal to the Constitution of the USA. It wasn’t a one-day promise; it was a lifetime promise.

I have never renounced the oath and I never will because I believe in this country’s Constitution. To think that I need to make that pledge again is an insult. Like a marriage vow it is for a lifetime. If the spouse were to ask for the marriage vow to be repeated every day before a meal wouldn’t that be insulting?

For you to compare my plight with Colin Kaepernick’s shows an extreme lack of knowledge. Your suggestion that I have disgraced our flag and country shows how little you know about the meaning of the Pledge of Allegiance.

I do not need, or want, your thanks for my service. Agnes, you accused me of not liking Carson City and suggested I live somewhere else. I did not say anything about not liking Carson City, my favorite place to live.

David Knighton, did you not read what I wrote about the Pledge of Allegiance? Why did you say that I despise it? Please read this again so that you understand what I have said.

Bud Irving

Carson City

Bagwell’s commentary on NFL protest spurns facts

I cannot allow Jim Bagwell to get away with deliberately misrepresenting the facts and denigrating American athletes (and their mothers) with unnecessary and insulting language. The facts are that Colin Kaepernick, and those following him, have engaged in a First Amendment protected form of peaceful protest of what they consider to be multiple cases of social injustice. If you’re too biased to know what I’m referring to, quit or read on. At no time did they disparage the flag, country or military. Those words came from a moron (as Tillerson put it) as he riled up his white base in Alabama. Bagwell just parroted the Divider-in-Chief like a true Trump supporter.

There is a disturbing trend in this country that some Americans actually welcome Trump’s authoritarianism. His admiration for Putin’s type of power is playing well with his base. It seems that millions of Trumpers are voluntarily displaying blind obedience and submission to his abuse of power. If he tells them to jump, they dutifully scream, “How high, Donald, how high?” Which would be so futile because it’s common knowledge that we can’t jump.

I will end with the My Lai massacre, the Tailhook incident, tortures at Guantanamo, and this assignment. Google the words “rapes and assaults of American women in the U.S. military.” Shocking and horrifying percentages. My point? Not all American athletes are jerks. Not all American soldiers are heroes.

Rick Van Alfen

Carson City

Suggestions to prevent Vegas-style mass shootings

With the shooting in Las Vegas, casino owners there might be faced with two options: Treat baggage the way airport customs does, either by X-ray or metal detection for each piece of luggage that comes in.

If luggage owners are present? One’s rights aren’t being violated, or someone’s plans for disaster were just foiled. Or start replacing hotel windows by adding shatterproof windows instead. But I believe fire codes wouldn’t allow that.

What happened in Las Vegas was dastardly. The former might speak for itself. Casino hotels should start X-raying their guests’ luggage.

It’s the point where you’re not event safe at a concert or anyplace else you might chance to go anymore. I just hope the bird’s nest-style shooting, from a Las Vegas hotel room, doesn’t trigger some bizarre trend among the vast number of gun-crazy crazy people there are in this world. It’s just unsafe.

Carson City, too, had its shooting spree — then one shootout where a sheriff’s deputy was killed. It’s like the whole world is coming apart at the seams, so it seems, anyway.

There’s death, destruction and mayhem everywhere. One cannot even turn on the television nowadays without hearing about something sinister going on somewhere on this planet, like in Vegas.

And to all those first responders either visiting or from Las Vegas, God bless them. Each deserves our unstinted praise for their selfless acts of courage. They went above and beyond the call, just the way good Americans and Christians do.

But that’s just my opinion.

Don Paetz

Carson City