Letters, 6/12: Test of excitement

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State Fair Racing is on, and they have an amusing radio ad that basically says why go to a boring Shakespeare Festival when you could see an exciting day of racing.

We agree that horse racing is exciting, but so is Shakespeare!  As the local Shakespeare Festival, we offer to put this to the test.

If the State Fair will give us a time and date, we will provide a snippet of Shakespeare exactly the length of one of their races. If the crowd in the clubhouse cheers, we prove our point and the races replace their ad with something more accurate. If they don’t, we’ll slink away and perform “Comedy of Errors” at the Swan Theatre in Wyuka Cemetery without further comment. 

What do you say, State Fair?  “Curse he that first cries ‘hold, enough!’”

Bob Hall, Lincoln

director 

Flatwater Shakespeare Company

Affordable broadband

Recent discussion about broadband Internet access in Nebraska compels me to share what I’ve found.

I suppose the people who are saying that every citizen of Nebraska has high-speed Internet access available are technically correct. Anything can be had — for a price.

I work out of a home office, and on a typical working day will spend six to seven hours out on the road and another two to three hours online submitting reports on the day’s activities and planning the next day. I could cut the time online by at least an hour per day if I had affordable high-speed Internet access available. The key word is affordable. 

As far as DSL goes, Alltel has a DSL transmitter in Seward and another in Milford. The coverage areas do not overlap. By coincidence I live in the country in a mile-wide “dead” zone between the two transmitters. So much for DSL.

High-speed access is also available via satellite. I’ve checked three different sources, including Alltel, Mainstay, and a smaller private source. All charge roughly the same, a setup fee of $400 to $600, plus monthly billings of from $60 to $100 depending on plan, prices that basically are not viable, nor within reason, for the typical user.

I can get more TV channels than I even want to think about via satellite for around $35 per month with a minimal, if any, installation charge. What I don’t understand is, why is there such a difference in pricing between TV satellite service and Internet satellite service?  I’m receptive to a logical explanation.

Gene Gausman, Milford

We need courage

With the contentious illegal immigration issue looming in America, Nebraska has an excellent opportunity to show leadership in combating this epidemic. We need only to look in the cities and towns with meat processing plants. Lexington is a very good example. Why did we let this happen?

We often hear about Republicans catering to big business. There is enough corruption to go around here within both parties. The meatpacking industry is big business, but no one in Congress, or the House of Representatives, has the courage to take them on.

Here is a solution: pressure the Department of Homeland Security to sponsor investigations, including “roundups,” at these processing plants in these cities and towns.

Arrest not only the illegal immigrants, but the CEOs, CIOs, COOs and human resource managers and charge them with conspiracy, aiding and abetting and collusion. The white-collar criminals go to court and the illegal immigrants go home.

Nebraska would be known for what would be called a “New Trail of Tears” that begins in central Nebraska and extends through Kansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. I am sure they took the shortest route in, so they can take the shortest route out. The cost would be minimal compared with the tax dollars required to harbor them here.

The most loved man in America is Arizona’s Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. He has the courage to do something. Do we?

Loren Zimmerman, Chadron

We need Nelson

Eric Friesen (letter, June 1) is attempting to make a flawed analogy to support Wall Street Pete.

Sen. Ben Nelson has raised money from thousands of individual Nebraskans over the course of his long career representing our state. Unlike our Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, Nelson has not had to return funds from unethical and possibly illegal Republican fundraising schemes.

If Pete Ricketts has to spend more than $10 million to play catch-up with Ben Nelson’s outstanding record of concern for and action on behalf of Nebraskans, that just shows that he has nothing else to stand on.

We should be thankful for the influence Nelson has built in Washington and his efforts to use that influence on behalf of our great state. Now, when we need someone to look out for our interests more than ever, we need Nelson, not Ricketts’ millions.

Doris Hoopes, Lincoln

Marsh had trees

I am replying to the column in the Local View section by Lisa Tompkin dated April 1 and entitled “Shoemaker Marsh’s serenity is no more” and the rebuttal response in the letters to the editor section dated April 12 by Terry Genrich entitled “Marsh restoration.”

My name is Dr. Charles F. Craft, and I am the son of Fred Craft, one of the original members of the Little Salt Duck Club on North 27th now named Shoemaker’s Marsh. I’d like to reply to Genrich (Natural Resources Manager, Lincoln Parks and Recreation Department), who commented on the recent tree removal there by stating “historical aerial photographs show that at one time, there were very few trees on Shoemaker Marsh, and the trees that were removed did not exist until after 1970.”

My father hunted and managed Little Salt since the 1940s, and I joined him starting in the early 1960s. We hunted for several decades out of the blind that was recently removed by the state. And for years we walked among the trees that are now missing on the hillside that was right behind the blind.

I can assure you that many large trees did indeed exist here long before 1970 and had always been a part of the natural wetlands that are found there along the marsh for as long as we can remember.

Unfortunately, the entire hillside is now bare except for the remaining stumps of the older and larger trees that were cut down. Because only this one hill has been cleared out of the entire three-lake marsh, it appears that the real reason to make this space was not to protect the environment but rather to create room for some sort of future building for the public.

I hope my observation is not true as it is always a shame when people end up damaging nature while having the best intentions of trying to save it!

Charles F. Craft, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Helmets are a good idea

On May 15, Bob and Ann Brown wrote a letter praising this newspaper for an article on bike commuting that appeared shortly before, but chiding the paper for using a photograph of a cyclist without a helmet. They did not name or chide the cyclist.

However, the cyclist responded in a letter published on May 27, saying that no one was going to tell him to wear a helmet (the Browns did not do that).

The cyclist then said that the Browns should be promoting safe cycling — showing how little he knows of the Browns, who for years have been doing just that. They have not argued for a mandatory helmet law but have simply and convincingly shown that wearing a helmet is a good idea.

With Trail Trek on the horizon, and good weather bringing out cyclists of all ages in vast numbers, all cyclists need to remember that following the rules of the road, just like motorists, is the best way to avoid collisions. Helmets don’t help avoid collisions — safe cycling does!

(But wear a helmet just in case that’s not enough.)

Bob Boyce, Lincoln