Fiber Arts Show

The 13th Annual Pahrump Arts Council's Fiber Arts Show will be held this weekend, Friday through Sunday, February 20-22 at 1-6 p.m., 9 a.m.-6 p.m., and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. respectively, at the Bob Ruud Community Center, at the corner of Basin and Highway 160. Come on by and see the wonderful work done by our talented artists, local and beyond. There will be displays of assorted fiber arts and crafts including quilts, handbags, needlework, crocheted and knitted items, demonstrations, vendors, gifts and prizes, a silent auction and more. Many of the items will be for sale, you just have to ask. Be sure to catch one of the "Bed Turning" performances, brought back by popular demand, and a wonderful display of the different types of bed covers and their histories through the words of their owners or creators. Who says there is nothing to do in Pahrump? Come and enjoy.

Sew long for now, but see you there.

DEBI RODRIGUEZ

Fiber Arts Show co-chair

In support of stimulus

We at H&M Pipe and Supply Inc. are in complete support of Utilities Inc.'s proposal and bid for stimulus funding from the federal government.

Our local economy in Pahrump will see a tremendous benefit from the proposed project. It will create new job opportunities and increased revenue to local businesses.

This project will bring Pahrump's fire flows up to current code, as well as increasing land values. Insurance premiums could also be lowered due to an improved ISO rating.

Ecologically, our town will benefit because the wastewater in the service areas can be used to irrigate Honeysuckle Park, the high school and the fairgrounds.

If Utilities Inc. can get the funding, which requires support from the citizens of Pahrump, improvements already on the table will be made at no cost to the consumer.

This project will give our local economy the boost it sorely needs.

HOWARD FRIED

President, H&M Pipe and Supply Inc.

Boo hoo to you, Mr. Rust

Well, and that's a deep subject, I just read your letter -- you were really boo hooing about your failure to find work in Nye County and Pahrump.

Yes indeed, it sounds like you'll have a resume a mile long.

However, imagine this Mr. Rust, I can boo hoo you one better. I am 57 and worked all my life just like you. Then the whole idea of living went out the window with a catastrophic illness on April 3, 2008.

I laid flat on my back for a month and went to a rehab center to learn to get strong and get off the walker.

Then I returned to Texas (a relative came to pick me up and drive me back). Many of my family, including a sister and my own father, abandoned me.

My next surgery was October and I survived again.

Well, to make a long story shorter, Mr. Rust, I did get SSI and just in December -- Social Security disability of 100 percent. But I do not have any medical benefits for two years because I am no longer young with children.

I make do now and I (like you) need a part-time job because I supported myself all those years and $52 only goes so far each month for food.

So good luck, Mr. Rust. At least these bags of Cheetos and Doritos feed me for three days.

Just don't get sick and nearly die because then you just really know how tough life is no matter where you live and despite not finding work yet, I love Pahrump and Nye County and the beautiful people here. Nye County paid a prescription for me and gave me three boxes of groceries when I was starving. That's worth telling about -- someone cared enough to help me.

Sincerely,

CYNTHIA KAY ALGER

Zen tax system

Our tax system looks like our legislators have studied Zen Buddhism.

Zen has a theology that contains a statement like this: "When you name something it no longer is what you have named it."

Insanely interpreted, it translates into the gas poisoning done in the subway of Japan years ago by a Zen sect.

In America, it becomes our tax system.

A citizen works and earns money called "salary." At the end of the year the government calls it "income" and takes part of it (over six months of it) and calls it "taxes."'

Then they take part of the "taxes" money and call it "salary" again and pay government workers with it.

At the end of the year this money that was "tax" money and changed to "salary" money becomes "income" money again and part of it is taken from the government worker and called "tax" money again.

So "tax" money from he private sector is taxed again. There are obscure laws in the financial and banking areas making it illegal to tax taxes.

Now tell me, how can the government "tax" money that is already "tax" money? That is a Zen Buddhist question.

Easy, just change the name of the money and it is no longer what it was originally named.

Confusing, of course. It takes an idiot (politician) to do that.

Now look at this fantasy delusion the lawmakers have devised.

Originally they took a bunch of money called "tax money" and paid "salaries" with it. Now they come back and "tax" those "salaries," get the kickback of the "tax" money and add it to the "tax" money they have already collected. That is double entry with a passion. The Mafia were angels.

Wow. I wonder what politicians have been smoking lately. The results are inflation and devaluation of our dollar.

Washington fantasizes they have 18 percent more than we pay in taxes. What cost (approximately) $1,200 in 1960, costs (in today's dollar) in the vicinity of $60,000.

To make it simple: $1 at 20 percent interest becomes $1.20 after one year; $1.44 the second year; $1.728 the third year; and, $2.1376 the fourth year. In four years your dollar has, to keep it simple, doubled. Each four years it will continue to do that.

In the real world $1,200 would be $29,8858.64 of inflation and (approximately) the same in deflation for a total of $59,717.28.

That's why a car that cost $2,500 in 1960 costs over $45,000 today and a 2,000 square-foot custom home that cost $13 per square-foot ($26,000) in 1950 costs $250,000 today, and that lower cost is only because of the efficiency of our American production workers.

No more "income tax," just a simple end user or consumer point of sale tax. Oh, but we cannot do that. Why?

Then when we buy a can of soup we will know how much tax we are paying (over 60 percent) and how much the government is stealing from the result of our labors that's called "salary" money. And gets rid of many of the politician's lies about money.

JOHN ANDERSON