Letters to the editor for Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2016

Sheriff Furlong should be commended

Just completed the Citizens Academy sponsored by Sheriff Furlong. I had an inside view of our Sheriff’s Office. Unlike the federal government, which at present has almost zero experience in business, where the bureaucrats waste the people’s money allocated by the large number of lawyer politicians, where corruption runs rampant, Sheriff Furlong is responsible for all facets of his department and is in tune with where every dime is spent on his elected watch.

I appreciate the job our sheriff does.

James Kingsbury

Carson City

March of Folly: We must turn climate change around

Sam Bauman’s commentary published on Oct. 11 discussed a 1984 book, “The March of Folly,” written by Pulitzer Prize winning historian Barbara Tuchman. Ms. Tuchman’s thesis was that governments on occasion will commit acts of “folly” in pursuit of policy contrary to self interest. Ms. Tuchman’s book starts with the Trojan horse and ends with the U.S. involvement in Vietnam in the 1970s. She passed away in 1989 and missed seeing how we (the U.S.) have messed up in the Middle East and are messing up in our response to climate change.

Contrary to Ms. Tuchman’s examples of nations and organizations committing “folly,” our current folly threatens our civilization and world. So far, we have managed to avoid nuclear war, our only other existential threat.

However, the threat of climate change is different, it is a slow-motion disaster. The CO2 we pump into our air increasingly alters our atmosphere. Even if we stop creating CO2, what we put into our atmosphere will not leave for thousands of years.

On the other hand, we have taken some action. On Oct. 14, 2016, a worldwide treaty was approved that should stop putting HFCs (AC refrigerant) in our air. However, this addresses only about 5 percent of our air pollution problem.

Tuchman has provided us with a perspective that shows how we have screwed up in the past. We desperately need to learn from our past mistakes. We must come together, admit we have a problem, and get to fixing our climate. Anything less is suicidal.

Bill Prowse

Carson City

Entitled high school athletes

I tell you this political correct world is raising nothing but a bunch of entitled children. After going to a Douglas High School soccer game and hearing boys cuss in Spanish to the refs thinking they don’t know Spanish, cussing at the coaches and telling them they don’t know how to coach, leaves me shaking my head. Coaches, you have my sympathy when dealing with these boys and parents.

So it was not surprising after that game that multiple varsity soccer boys quit the team blaming everything in their path, except themselves. My suspicions lead me to believe they quit because they were not going to make the playoffs.

It brings me to the days of AYSO soccer where they did not want to keep score, and when they did they could not win by more than five goals. Oh, and then of course everyone gets a trophy.

So now we are in high school sports and, well, these boys are not going to get a trophy so they quit. Shame on parents that allow their children to commit to a sport and then quit. That sure is not going to work in the real world.

Parents, what are we raising here, men or mice? So stop blaming the coaches, the athletic directors, and the school. Look in the mirror and get the answer from their upbringing.

Sunni Enciso

Minden