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To read additional letters and tips on how to comment, visit us online at www.dailystar.com/opinion

Re: the Aug. 24 article "It's stand up, line up and wait as post offices end number slips."

The signs in the lobbies state that this change was done due to customer demand. Which customers you may ask? Certainly not those who have written to the newspapers or have spoken to television cameras. It certainly is not the customers I have spoken to, and it most certainly was not the elderly or disabled customers.

I would like to thank the general public for still praising the work that the window clerks do, and for understanding that this silly change was the work of higher-level managers and not the clerks themselves.

Now is the time for our postal customers to tell the post office and their elected officials to put the service back into the United States Postal Service.

Why are the Iraq war casualties totaling 2,600 over the five-year period stressed daily while the highway death toll and smoking death tally for the same period goes unnoticed? What is the purpose? Is it to convince the public that war is hell, embarrass our political leaders or encourage withdrawal from Iraq? Is it an invitation to the terrorists to continue because the United States will run when the going gets tough?

Unfortunately, we forget that nearly 3,000 people were killed on 9/11 in a matter of hours.

Re: the Aug. 29 guest opinion "Buffelgrass criticism is misguided; plant's benefits receive short shrift."

I greatly enjoyed Ann Carr's alternative views on buffelgrass. At last, someone is looking at the good side of buffelgrass. Ralph Waldo Emerson said "a weed is a plant whose virtues have yet to be discovered." Buffelgrass has many virtues. Carr mentioned the ability of buffelgrass to greatly increase rainwater infiltration into the soil.

Had the watersheds of the Santa Cruz River been covered with buffelgrass, the devastating floods of October 1983 could have been largely averted, as well as the half-billion dollars of damage resulting from the floods.

It's no big problem controlling buffelgrass; just a few cows per section of land will do it. And they will be grinning from ear to ear as they graze that luscious, nutritious buffelgrass.

If President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are going to use the word fascism to describe our enemies, they at least need to look it up in the dictionary. Fascism is, in fact, the direction in which they are leading this country.

It's the embodiment of the military-industrial complex that Dwight Eisenhower warned us about, now alive and well in the United States of America; a system in which the far right merges state and business leadership together with a belligerent nationalism.

When we can no longer criticize our government when it makes wrong turns, then we certainly are not a democracy.

Re: the Aug. 30 article "Arizona's medical coverage plummets."

I recently had a conversation with one of my friends regarding this topic, and he said to me that the reason more Arizonans are going without health coverage is because "we are a border state." According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, however, nonborder states such as Indiana, Missouri and Virginia are also experiencing a rise in the number of their state residents who are uninsured.

I strongly believe that statements like my friend's are an alarming sign that more and more of us are not keeping up to date with our health-care system, how it works, what problems exist, and the actual cause and severity of those problems.

Kudos to the Star for putting this article on the front page, and shame on those politicians who preach to us that illegal immigration is the state's No. 1 problem, thus diverting our attention from this crisis.

I wanted to take a moment to congratulate you on a great comment page. Recently, my hometown paper stated that it would not publish comments that stepped on too many local businesses' toes.

If a paper prints only one side of the community's feelings, the information presented is slanted in whatever direction the paper wants. Your paper lets the reader get a taste of both sides of the fence. Your paper allows some stepping on toes, if it is done with reason.

I applaud you for allowing the little guy to get something off his chest, presenting a view that may only be his and his alone. There does not seem to be a slant one way or the other on your comment pages. Keep up the good work.

Re: the Aug. 30 article "Polygamist church's future is up in the air."

One hundred years ago, my mother's side of the family practiced polygamy. One of my ancestors, a bigwig in the Mormon church, had nine wives. He kept adding teenage wives to his harem whenever his youngest wife was no longer of childbearing age until he reached his mid-60s.

I know, from both family stories and reading more widely, how crushing and hurtful this practice is to the spirit of these wives. One family story goes that one of my ancestor's wives died of a broken heart shortly after her husband brought another wife home.

This family history is not a source of pride in my family. I am so glad that polygamy is not practiced now in the mainline Mormon church. This illegal polygamous practice continues to horribly wound women and must be stopped.

Re: the Aug. 31 article "Drew comes home."

What a beautiful picture. Drew Donnellan has come home. The series on this exceptional young man should be an inspiration to everyone. He has exhibited tremendous courage, and will need additional courage and support to continue in his life. Best wishes to Drew and to his mother, Fran.

Re: the Aug. 31 article "Bush: Iraq pullout would create terrorist state."

Our president now tells us that leaving Iraq before the job is done will create a terrorist state in the heart of the Middle East that will be much more dangerous than Afghanistan was before we removed the Taliban.

After assuring us repeatedly that because of the war in Iraq we are now safer than we were after 9/11, this is probably as close as the administration will ever come to admitting that the invasion was a tragic world-class blunder. It appears we are now wedged firmly and seemingly inextricably between Iraq and a hard place.