Hope

As I sat Monday, Aug. 13, looking out over the sea of people pouring into the Skate Zone to participate in Sen. Hillary Clinton's "Conversation with Nevadans," I really didn't know what to expect. Over the last three election cycles I had developed a certain disenfranchisement from my government. Democracy, as I had known it, seemed no longer to exist. I felt invisible. Would today be different?

There was electricity in the air as I watched the diminutive senator from New York take the podium. In the strong clear voice of a leader, Hillary spoke to the crowd, not at them.

My abandoned hope began to stir as she spoke of her belief that the United States can once again be [a] respected leader in our global community. Hillary reminded the crowd that we, everyday Americans, can solve our own problems at home while making a difference in our world.

A plan to disengage our troops in Iraq and start bringing them home, before the next administration takes office, touched my heart. I thought of my niece, recently returned from Iraq and a new mother, and thanked God.

Nevada has the potential to lead the nation in solar, wind and geothermal energy production. We have the natural resources, and Hillary has a plan that will work. Her vision of vast solar farms between Las Vegas and Pahrump set off a spark in a community desperate for good-paying jobs close to home. The economy is only served when people can afford the product they produce.

I was thrilled when the senator spoke of health care reform that would include preventive health care to ward off debilitating, life-threatening illness.

What a concept - you don't have to cure that which you prevent from happening in the first place.

Clinton's program for education includes a pre-kindergarten program and offers up the idea that all students deserve a chance to further their education. It also takes into consideration plans for vocational and apprentice programs for those kids who are not college-bound.

Her program truly leaves no child behind.

Yes, today was different. I felt genuine hope surge as Sen. Clinton addressed my deepest concerns in her no-nonsense practical manner. Today I can envision a better America, and I refuse to be invisible any longer.

JAN BEARSS

Hillary stumps Pahrump

Your Aug. 15 edition featured a "Conversation with Nevadans."

The PVT did mention that the candidate focused her remarks more on Republican failures than on her Democratic contenders.

There is no denying Republican shortcomings, but what did she offer? What has she accomplished? She did not mention a single word on the continuing invasion of our borders by illegal aliens.

I do remember one statement she made a while back that scares the hell out of me still today: "We are going to take things away from you on behalf of the public good," June 29, 2004.

Also people have forgotten her stay in the White House. During that time, her hatred for the military was so intense that she wanted no military presence in the building whatsoever. She didn't get her way on that count but did force them to wear plain clothes throughout her stay. Recently she says that she has nothing to hide, yet her time in the White House has been sealed and will not be allowed to be read until after the election, for instance, her college papers that were sealed on her writings on socialism and communism.

ALAN WETTER

AMERICAN-VETERAN-MINUTEMAN

[Both Newsweek Magazine (Dec. 12, 2005) and Colorado Media Matters (Aug. 28, 2006) report the effort to ban the military from the White House never occurred, nor was there any effort to "force them to wear plain clothes."]

The American way

Now there are nine garden nurseries in Pahrump And with the giant Las Vegas Star now established here, there will soon be fewer. Next year, Home Depot with its 30,000 square foot garden center means the end of the Mom and Pop stores in Pahrump. That's progress folks--big guy swallows up small guys. The little stores simply do not have the purchasing power of the giants, which means the certain demise of the neighborhood store.

But not yet big guys. We Mom and Pops aren't ready to roll over and play dead yet.

Is it the American way?

Back in my hometown of Duluth, Minn. we grew up buying all our groceries from Gustafson's Market at Fourth Avenue West and Third Street. The store was about 1,000 square feet with stuff covering every inch of the place. Ol' man Gustafson knew every family within a square mile, and all of us kids by our first names.

When the giant Piggly Wiggly supermarket opened three blocks away, nobody went to Gustafson's anymore. I don't know what happened to the ol' man, but the neighborhood lost its identity, its historian and every kid's friend.

That was circa 1940 and today, the big Piggly Wiggly giant is a vacant lot across the street from a Wal-Mart Supercenter.

The American way? I suppose.

DON CHARLEBOIX

SOUTHSIDE NURSERY