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Letters received in past week: 239

Letters published: 60

Hot issues: From July 12 to July 18, the Star received nine letters opposing the Star's editorial regarding The New Yorker and its July 21 cartoon cover (zero approved). Four letters opposed junk food in school (zero supported).

To read tips on how to comment, visit us online at www.azstarnet.com/opinion

Re: the July 15 letter "Star misses point on patriotism."

The letter writer first assails the Star for its editorial describing the campaign patriotism debate as a sham. Then the writer proceeds to mount a character assassination of candidate Barack Obama. He insinuates that Obama is a racist, crook and anarchist with other unsavory characteristics.

The only mistake the Star made was in publishing his letter. The concept of patriotism includes a broad realm of heroics, but unjustified and malicious attacks on a candidate for president of the United States, regardless of political party, is not one of them. This sort of political hyperbole denigrates our election process.

Re: the July 17 letter "Stop march toward digital television."

The letter writer calls for stopping the march to digital television. I fear that he is much too late.

The mandate came along about five or six years ago. It was set in stone a year ago, more or less. The local TV stations and others across the country have spent millions of dollars for the conversion.

I am not an advocate for digital anything. TV in the fringe areas will be problematic. Near fringe (closer to the stations) will get better reception than they had before. The far-fringe areas will be another story. Where there was a snowy, but watchable picture, there may well be nothing, because digital is either perfect or nonexistent.

The writer needs to go ahead and get a converter box. Think of it as having the tuner fail and finding that they don't make them anymore. Rather than buy a new TV, you put an external box on it.

Time marches on, and so do TV sets. You can't buy TV sets that use tubes on the chassis anymore, and most today don't even have picture tubes anymore.

Re: the July 14 article "Sales-tax backers want rewrite."

The TIME Coalition, a powerful coalition of highway builders and growth businesses, says the description of its proposed 30-year, 1-cent transportation sales tax is biased because it correctly calls it a 17.8 percent sales-tax increase.

This nonelected coalition wants us to give it 30-year control over an expected $43 billion ($1.4 billion a year) to be used primarily to accommodate hundreds of thousands more cars on Arizona roads. Don't let them disguise this $43 billion elephant.

Critical elements of the plan will not be completed until 2010. The coalition is still negotiating the projects to entice elected officials to support its plan.

Yet it rushed this to a November vote so we won't have a chance to suggest better uses for $43 billion — like education, health care, social services or a balanced state budget. Suspicious.

Re: the July 13 column "Cop a gospel-singin', horse-ridin' Buffalo Soldier" by Ernesto Portillo Jr.

Portillo's feature on Bobby Boone has honored a pillar of the community. Boone has done as much as any one single person in Tucson without the fanfare.

Hail to Boone and to Neto for recognizing this very unique and special angel.

I understand that the nation could save a million gallons of oil a day by lowering the speed limits nationally, as was done in the '70s.

If it worked then, why not now?

Are we so unwilling to put ourselves out by making such a little effort? The difference would be seen immediately, not eight to 10 years from now.

It is like a family deeply in debt that instead of cutting spending and being more frugal runs out and gets another credit card.

Why do I not hear anything about taking steps to lower our consumption on a national level? We just get wishy washy talk.

Re: the July 17 article "Coda to '06 fight: Israel mourns; Hezbollah cheers."

Lebanon President Michel Suleiman's statements upon convicted murderer Samir Kuntar's return from an Israeli prison — "Your return is a new victory" and "And the future with you will only be a shining march" — places Lebanon squarely in the column with other terrorist-sponsor states like Iran and Syria.

Anybody who ever doubted this now has incontrovertible proof with these statements. The fact that a red carpet was laid out for the return of a cold-blooded murderer should lay any doubts of Lebanon's standing among nations to rest.

We should suspend all trade and freeze all assets of Lebanon and Lebanese nationals immediately. It is again time to make a strong statement that we will not deal with terrorist states.

Re: the July 16 article "UA idea: Tucsonans save water; funds go to restore our rivers."

Don't get me wrong. I am 100 percent for real, proactive water-conservation efforts on the part of the city of Tucson and Pima County. But recently I have attended several water meetings in Pima County and the city. I have learned that by far the greatest percentage of water is being consumed by the agriculture and mining industries.

So, here is a novel concept. How about we stop welcoming any new mining companies as a proactive water-conservation measure as opposed to continually asking the people to step up to the plate. As this article's statistics show, people have improved their water-consumption habits greatly only to have their successes overshadowed by yet another mining company coming to town to devour our scarce and precious water supply.

Re: the July 17 letter "Churches doing the right thing."

I would remind the letter writer that the people in the underground railroad were escaping from slavery and the Jews were escaping from genocide. The present people are only attempting to escape from poverty. Quite a different thing and hardly as dire.