Letters

Booked Up is big, but not the biggest

In your article ["Catfish Plate at the Dairy Queen," Editor's Note, Feb. 10], you state that Booked Up, with 500,000 books, is the largest used bookstore in the U.S. This is clearly not the case. I'm not at all certain which is the largest used bookstore in the U.S., but these are some of the candidates:

• The Strand Bookstore in NYC.

• Powell's Bookstore, Portland, Ore. (1,436,846 books online).

• John K. King Books, Detroit (claims over 1 million books, not yet online).

Many secondary book-selling companies (including open stores and warehouse Internet operators) have more than half a million books, including our own.

Booked Up is a highly respected book-selling company, and indeed Larry McMurtry is more a book seller than a novelist, to me at least, but it is not, by far, the largest used bookstore in the U.S.

--Rhett Moran,

Gutenberg Holdings

Jessica Williams case points out legal hypocrisy

Hopefully the 9th Circuit Court will bring some justice to this tragedy. Jessica Williams received 48 years in a cage to provide vengeance for the families of the victims. To further the judge in his rise to the state Supreme Court, to help the D.A. move to a judgeship.

It is interesting to note the prosecutor has resigned his position and now is in private practice. He represents those accused of DUI now. But most of all this was about protecting all the others who helped cause this tragedy. Jessica foolishly allowed herself to become so fatigued she was involved in a horrible crash. She was not a criminal, just a foolish teenager.

Fifty years in prison serves no purpose whatsoever. What will be gained when a 70-year-old Ms. Williams comes out of the cage? How about the cost? It will cost over $800,000 to keep this nonviolent offender in her cage for 50 years. The taxpayers are not getting much for their buck. This does not include the vast amount spent in the trial and appeals, etc. What price vengeance?

Just as important, how can you be innocent and guilty of the same offense? Let's see, I have a beer at noon, then at 4 I have an accident, someone is killed. I pass the breath test, the blood test and am declared not under the influence. But I had a beer at noon so I go to prison not for DUI, but for having a beer. In the past four years I have seen so many terrible crimes and DUI accidents where the accused get off with no more than a slap on the wrist.

One, for instance, comes to mind, the woman talking on the cell phone, runs the stop sign and kills two senior citizens, maims the son of one of them. This person got off with probation, which she violated several times. What gives with this? It's okay to kill us old folks? When Attorney John Watkins finally is successful in his quest for justice, he should be awarded a certificate naming him attorney of the year. The man is a real hero, the kind you see on TV. You know, the ones that really want to get justice for the helpless.

--P.C. Rustigian

Bush has no shame in attacking Reid

President Bush twice mentioned the evils of tyranny in his Jan. 20 State of the Union address. In a Jan. 26 press conference, the president said further that, "There's a notion in some parts of that world that, you know, certain people can't self-govern...and that condemns people to tyranny. And I refuse to accept that point of view."

Tyranny is a government in which a single ruler is vested with absolute power. Tyranny is absolute power, especially when exercised unjustly or cruelly. Tyranny has long been opposed by democracy and the president is in good company in his condemnations of tyranny: "I have sworn...eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man," said Thomas Jefferson.

But President Bush's actions drown his noble rhetoric.

Far from supporting freedom of belief, freedom of opinion and freedom of opposition, the very freedoms the president claims we are justly fighting to establish in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Bush and the Republican majority have viciously attacked all dissent of their absolute and unlimited rule in our Congress. In fact, the Republican Party of George W. Bush has declared a political and cultural war against the Democratic opposition, targeting Sen. Harry Reid as first to be fired upon with a barrage of hateful attacks sent to partisan-weary citizens in bulk political mail by his Republican National Committee. This post-election attack-dog campaign is let loose by the very majority that pledged to lead our nation with strength, humility and a promise to unite.

Independent thinkers must view this desperate, disgraceful and despicable behavior, while our armed forces fight and die in other countries for the freedom of opposition that Bush and the Republicans denounce at home, as an embarrassment for our nation. Nothing that happened in November gave President Bush or the Republican majority the right to behave with such arrogance and prideful disregard for their sworn offices.

All that stands between we the people and this unbridled tyranny of the majority is Nevada's Harry Reid and a handful of Democrats from a long and proud tradition of fighting for the simple rights of a free people. Republican bragging of a love for democracy and hatred of tyranny while attacking the loyal Democratic leadership is hypocrisy of the grandest scale.

Mr. President, have you no shame?

--John J. Cahill,

Henderson