DRONES
Spies in the sky not welcome here
In hearing that there are now considerations regarding having unmanned aircraft, aka "drones," being allowed to fly over certain states and then seeing that the Idaho Senate passed the issue to allow them in our state, and it will now go to the House for a vote, I am very concerned. We do not need to have these "Eyes in the Sky" flying over Idaho, as they were called by news anchor Brian Williams on NBC.
These "Spies in the Sky" are an invasion of our privacy and should therefore not be allowed. I would hope that this measure is defeated by the House and by anyone else who has the authority to defeat such a measure.
ANN DOUPONT, Boise
BCT PRODUCTION
A show worth seeing
There is something going on in Downtown Boise that I just have to shout about. It is the production of "A Nighttime Survival Guide" at Boise Contemporary Theater. This company's shows have challenged and delighted adults for years. But this production goes beyond that to reach out to anyone from 8 years old and up. The show has everything from song and dance to puppet monsters. You will laugh and cry, and even shiver a bit.
I saw the show in an audience of mixed ages and the delight was universal. I haven't heard that many declarations of "awesome" and "cool" in quite some time. And the best part of the show is that it enables those of us who haven't been children in a while to go back to the time when we were just starting to figure out reality and make believe, friendship and loss.
So gather your children, your parents and your friends at get to a performance of "A Nighttime Survival Guide" at Boise Contemporary Theater. You will be transported from Arco, Idaho to Akaigawa, Japan to the child inside you.
See you there.
KAREN KELLEY, Boise
PRESIDENT OBAMA
Obama's approach is better than Bush's
On Nov. 6 2012, Barack Obama was re-elected president of the United States with more than 50 percent of the popular vote and 332 electoral votes. On Jan. 21, he gave his second term inaugural address and set forth what was described as a progressive or liberal agenda. Immediately after his address, Republican pundits described it as combative, in your face, and lacking in a tone of compromise.
But yet, when George W. Bush was re-elected president in 2004 with more than 50 percent of the popular vote and 286 electoral votes, he declared his intentions three days later to press ahead with a radical free-market agenda that almost led our country to the brink of another Great Depression. He stated, "I have political capital. I intend to spend it." Those comments and his subsequent inaugural address were lacking in a tone of compromise, but the current Republican pundits seem to have forgotten that.
A winning president need not talk of compromise if he has political capital to spend to advance an agenda on which he ran for office and won. I applaud President Obama for his "in your face" approach. The people will decide in the mid-term elections in 2014 whether Obama has gone too far.
ROBERT BLEVINS, Garden City
POLITICS
Rich get richer
I've never had as much hope for this country, the planet, than since the president's speech. If we just do every other war, that only makes 200 to 300 billionaires, a trillion-dollar war, started on lies, doesn't matter. You have to take it out on me, on others like me, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security. Kill a lot of people for a reason the turns to be untrue, make a very few incredibly rich, No contract bids to Dick Cheney's company Halliburton, and then blame all money problems on the poor and disabled, as if we would have started such a lie of a war. How does anybody sleep? Are we all just "them." Does it take one of yours to be them before your attention is got?
Hey, not to worry, if you haven't experienced this fabulous fun, you will, we are churning out more poor, homeless, underfed kids in decades. So, just stay tuned; hopefully someone, somehow someday will catch your attention. BTW, it's not left or right; it's people helping, or not, people. It's that simple.
KEVIN LAAKSO, New Plymouth
ABORTION
Don't worry about guns
There should be no gun control at all. The government should give every man and woman over the age of 16 a semi-automatic, 1,000 rounds of ammo and the right to kill anyone they please. Then when that number reaches 55 million we will have murdered the same number of people as the number of unborn children murdered since Roe v. Wade in 1974. Approximately 3,200 unborn die every day, yet we cry for the 26 killed at Sandy Hook. How ungodly, how hypocritical.
RICHARD PACHECO, Boise
ECO-TERRORISTS
Ranchers pay the price
Well, I see the eco-terrorist Western Watershed is at it again. Along with Winmill, who sits up in his cushy seat and has a job for life, have succeeded in costing a lot of people their livelihoods. If they only knew that if a rancher doesn't take care of the land then he is also out of business. So Winmill sits up there and makes stupid decisions in your "I get paid for life job" and I can only hope when groceries are like gas and cost you a $100 every time you go to the store, I hope you and Western Watershed are the first to whine. The only other problem would be ranchers would be too proud to take welfare from a corrupt federal government.
SONNY VAN CLEAVE, Parma
FEEDBACK
Negative feedback provides a check
In engineering school we studied a concept called "feedback." There are two types of feedback: "positive" and "negative." It turns out "negative feedback" is what keeps things from spinning out of control. When something exceeds its normal functional parameters, that's the force that returns it to its safe operating range again.
If a car's front-end is not designed properly and you turn the front wheels too far to one side or the other, the wheels might try to lock all the way over to that side, rather than self-correcting safely back to the center.
I'm afraid that we are now experiencing "positive feedback" in a number of societal areas - financial dealings, gun control, political polarization, middle class collapse, etc. As regular citizens, we may not be cognizant of the inherent dangers of positive feedback, although the Founding Fathers certainly understood a great deal about how things can go terribly wrong in a country.
We've been lulled into a false sense of security, believing that our society is automatically self-correcting, when in fact there is absolutely nothing that guarantees this. We all need to grab the wheel and get back on course - it's up to us.
BRUCE BOATNER, Meridian
RANEY
Sheriff delivers the right message
Kudos to Sheriff Raney.
His opinion piece calmly and clearly states his opinion on the hysteria around gun control. Some letters to the editor attacked this position and threatened to work to unseat him in the next election. Congratulations to those writers for recognizing that portion of democracy. That's how it works.
Too bad they fail to recognize the remainder of laws quoted within. To be fair, one did admit Sheriff Raney's position was accurate but then called him "yellow" for correctly following his oath to uphold the law. Silliness abounds!
The lack of similar articles suggests that the greater portion of county residents do not froth at the mouth when they hear the posturing of the president. The two other branches of federal government will have their say before anyone dare try to take a single legally owned weapon.
The sheriff pointed to the real issue at hand, virtually ignored in the mania: failure to deal with the mentally ill. This was the root cause of most of the recent mass shootings, not gun availability.
I am a life long gun owner/enthusiast and would happily support honest law enforcement officers such as Raney who do not pander to hysterical demagogues.
MITCH CALDWELL, Eagle
