Editor:
On the evening of Feb. 23, at the invitation of the Carson Valley Arts Council, Tim Jones and Robin Hodgkin of the Nevada Arts Council presented a workshop entitled community conversations at the Minden library. The purpose of the workshop was to facilitate a dialogue on the state of the arts in our community, in order to assist us and the Nevada Arts Council in shaping long range plans for the arts in Nevada. There is particular concern that the arts not be marginalized during the present economic downturn.
I attended the workshop. The following poem expresses my personal thoughts and feelings about what took place there.
Conversations about Art
We sat in a back-room of the library"
20-some people, drawn there to converse,
local citizens"artists, and advocates of the arts
come to talk about something we loved.
First we were given the facts and
numbers "
grants being cut by as much as 80
percent,
but we were not there for the facts,
we were there for something we loved.
Then something amazing began to
happen "
we were guided to turn toward our vision and values,
and people began to share"they spoke openly and with passion
of their hopes and dreams for the town.
Words like 'prosperity' and 'possibility' flew from lips"
we inhaled them like oxygen, breathing out a new community,
creating something that had never been " a work of art.
I like thinking of life as art. And I like thinking that we are all artists, creating with our thoughts and words in every moment.
These are not facts, mind you, just a conversation between you and me, a conversation about life and art " a conversation that might make a
difference.
For those who are interested in being part of an ongoing conversation for the arts in Douglas County, please contact the Carson Valley Arts Council: 782-8207 or online at www.cvartscouncil.com
Ginny Cardenas
Gardnerville
Editor:
Well, there they go again. Looks like the queen bee and her loyal hive has stung again.
In case you missed seeing the county commissioner's meeting which occurred at the Lake on Feb. 19, you may not know that two of our commissioners were MIA. Evidently, they were banned from the head commissioner's table and put at a side table usually reserved for staff. They were replaced by our county manager and our D.A., who usually will have a table reserved just for them.
So, what do you think?
Maybe, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Brady will be welcomed back into the fold if they write "I promise to be good" 100 times.
Nah. They have too much integrity.
I apologize to Mr. Brady and Mr. Johnson for their humiliation, since my vote helped put this hive in charge.
The next election will not be here soon enough. As for me, I am getting tired of being stung. How about you?
Ken Allen
Minden
Editor:
When I read Steve Lang's letter (Feb. 20), I thought he had a good point. A mag-lev train from Vegas to Disneyland instead of a $15,000 tax credit for home buyers? Pretty frivolous. Like Mr. Lang, I was outraged, so I went on-line and got a copy of the final bill. Using the search tool, I searched for "Disneyland," "Las Vegas," "mag-lev," "Nevada" and "California." The only hit I got was for a water management program for the Delta area in Northern California. No mention of Disneyland, Las Vegas or a mag-lev train.
So I re-read Mr. Lang's letter and saw he was citing an article from the AP, "Economic stimulus package on track for final votes." Again, I went online and pulled up the article. The article discusses various aspects of the bill, such as the $500-per-worker credit being scaled back to $400, the one-time payment of $250 to Social Security and Supplemental Security Income recipients, as well as veterans receiving pensions, the $46 billion going to transportation projects, and the 60 percent subsidy to help unemployed people pay for health insurance premiums under the COBRA program. It also describes how the $15,000 tax credit for anybody buying a home was replaced with an $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers on homes bought by Aug. 31. Then it described the $70 billion to shelter middle- to upper-income taxpayers from the alternative minimum tax. Finally, the last paragraphs about specific provisions state that Obama and Reid were pressing for $8 billion to construct high-speed rail lines and that Reid's office issued a statement noting that a "proposed Los Angeles-to-Las Vegas rail might get a big chunk of the money."
Wait a minute. Proposed Los Angeles to Las Vegas rail? What about Disneyland? What about the $15,000 tax cut to be being "swapped" for this "porker?" Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Think about it. Numerous businesses in the Los Angeles area hold off-site meetings. Where better to hold them than Las Vegas, bringing much needed tourism and spending to our state? Making it easier for Californians to spend their money in our state doesn't sound much like a porker to me. Curious as to how Mr. Lang could have been so misled by the article he cited, I did a little more research. Opponents of the bill have derisively referred to this proposed line as the "Sin Express" or "from Sin City to Tomorrowland."
Opponents of the bill have failed to correctly report that service from Los Angeles to Las Vegas was merely proposed and that it was proposed by President Obama not Sen. Reid as part of a re-investment in our national infrastructure. In fact, the high-speed rail corridor designations do not include any lines between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Too bad. It might have helped our state.
Dale A. Zusi
Minden
Editor:
Just how stupid do the beltway insiders think the public is? Most of them are not qualified to wash cars but they make decisions that put the "general welfare" of our grandkids in jeopardy. These wizards have borrowed a stack of $100 bills that's 947 miles high in the last six months. To make matters worse they are predicting doom and gloom with the pronouncement that we are in a crisis. The state of the economy is in large part determined by public confidence; the claim that a crisis exists is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The fact is the "stimulus" is a solution in search of a problem. A politician without a problem to solve has a difficult time justifying their existence.
Much has been said about corporate CEO's compensation and use of company aircraft. Discussions about the recent increase in Congressional pay and use of government aircraft are conspicuous by their absence. The operating cost for most corporate aircraft is less than $5,000, at most $10,000 an hour. The estimated cost of operating Air Force One is $60,000 an hour. Including Marine One and security costs the total is close to $75,000 an hour.
President Obama said that CEOs shouldn't be traveling on the taxpayer's dime but travels on the taxpayer's dime. How can travel to Denver, Cedar Rapids, etc. on borrowed money for photo ops be justified? The CEOs that produce something and create wealth have been unjustly condemned.
I left the Socialist Republik of Kalifornistan because of its out of control government. Now that the SRK is bankrupt, taxpayers are forced to pay for failed liberal policies with taxes diverted through the beltway.
That's bad enough if it were only the SRK but any state that has balanced budget requirements now have a revenue source with strings, more accurately a noose, held by the beltway insiders.
Now is the time to recognize that the stimulus package has nothing to do with the economy; the purpose is a power transfer to Washington, D.C.
Again, just how stupid do the beltway insiders think we are?
We often hear about the government investing in some social engineering scheme. An entity that produces nothing and confiscates the assets of those who do produce can't make an investment.
Risk is intrinsic in any investment and risk takers are never guaranteed any return. Government "investments" that fail just lead to confiscating more from the producers. Any politician that proposes that government make an "investment" believes the money you earn belongs to the government from the get-go. When you hear about government investment recognize those words as code for tax and spend.
Again, just how stupid do the beltway insiders think we are?
Richard Frost
Minden
