LETTERS

Richard Abowitz,

Wow, what a story. ("The Life," June 23) Gives real insight about the girls working there. Not the usual slash and trash about that profession. I'm surprised that LVW allowed the amount of column-inch they did.

I am a health-care provider and have several working girls as my patients.

My experience talking with the girls somewhat mirrors the main idea of your story. It makes me feel good that someone with your writing ability (did someone say Pulitzer?) finally put a more realistic light on who and what goes on. Your tale of reality gives more than just the macho locker-room BS.

Guys can be real phonies sometime.

Too bad that with their giving nature they are failing to capitalize of their major asset, and I don't mean the one between their legs.

Dear Las Vegas Weekly

Although the Big Daily Paper has carried some letters fuming about the Supreme Court's five-to-four decision that, yes, any community anywhere can take your private property, no writer seemed to have any solution other than hand-wringing to offer.

I feel the people who pick up the Weekly tend to be less complacent than the ruminative readers of the R-J.

To rule that a local government can take your house, business, or piece of land and give it to some other private person or business they feel might put it to better use than you do? It seems to me the Founding Fathers of this country mentioned something about people's rights to "life, liberty, and property" somewhere. The Court, in the most wrongheaded decision since it upheld slavery, has just ripped away one-third of that constitutional guarantee.

Yes, the City of Las Vegas got away with it in the name of Downtown redevelopment, but now it's legal everywhere. You and I think we own a home or business or land just because we bought and paid for it. We don't. Any city, town or county government that feels it can make more from a Wal-Mart or a factory or an amusement park can wipe out your neighborhood by saying "Here's a check; now move out."

But there's one factor those government entities haven't counted on. In all Clark County, for instance, there are hundreds of us veterans who, in effect, were handed a gun by our country and told to use it to fight for our rights, our freedom, and our homes. I was asked that twice, by two branches of service in two wars.

I don't have those guns, but I do have and know how to use weapons. I am still willing to fight for the reasons just given—and would join with my neighbors to do just that—as we all should be willing to.

Mark Twain said, "The law is a jackass." The Supreme Court has just proved it.

To Josh Bell,

You, sir, are a moron for not rating Land of the Dead more highly. Obviously you are a lonely critic jealous of anyone who can put forth a decent movie, ready at a moment's notice to slam it if it doesn't fit your incredulous, elitist standpoint.

No, I'm just kidding, I hate when people write feeble ad hominem attacks. Your review hit the mark perfectly. The problem with this movie is, as you state, that it is just another zombie movie—not necessarily another Romero zombie movie, which might have been better. I love zombie movies, and this one was good enough for me; it doesn't live up to any of Romero's other ones, however, but it's decent, so I enjoyed it.

Thanks for the excellent review, Josh. It's really too bad that Romero's film doesn't even rise above its "progeny," as you wrote. Also, I'd like to see you do more movie reviews, maybe in place of some of the other people at the Weekly who aren't very good: Martin Stein, etc. Seriously: Please ask Martin Stein to stop writing reviews, they're not very cogent and insightful, they're merely well-written.

Keep writing, Josh!

Dear Stacy Willis,

I noticed several mistakes in the article on Nellis AFB (June 30):

1) As a former lifeguard and a former airman, the largest mistake is that below medicine's war against death, even the hottest war is nevertheless a cold war.

2) It's "courts martials"—meaning the courts within the military services, as separate from the civilian courts, except at the Supreme Court—not court martial(s), as in court markings (rulings). This is because each is plural.

3) UNLV used to have an Army ROTC detachment, and I know this because my dad, a formerly retired Army Lt. Col. who also helped make the Air Force develop the A-10 (though now deceased), had taught military history primarily, though not exclusively for those considering the Army as a potential career.

I respectfully disagree with Josh Bell about Bewitched ("Witchy Woman," June 30). Although reality is much larger than many care to admit, there are limits: Whenever the Samantha Stephens character turned any other character into an animal, they were acknowledging both comedic licence and those limits by means of camera tricks, NOT crediting witches with a power they've never had. Since a witch can NOT transubstantiate, much of the dominance/submission (if it was there at all) was played primarily for its absurdist contributions.

Sonja's column (Wink) probably is therapeutic for many including herself, but the term she may have been looking for in a recent column is "schizoid," for which she may want to attend several of the Boomer's Humors shows as they are much less expensive than Freudian or other therapies.

In fact, all your staff and readers are invited to attend.

Thank you,

Las Vegas Weekly,

Holy cow and WOW. Eden by far is one the best cover girls (June 23, 2005) you have had, as far as I am concerned. If her personality matches her looks and smile, she must be one heck of a woman. Where can I meet her? LOL. Great job, guys and ladies. More of her would be just great.

"I do the best I know how, the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing it to the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me will not amount to anything. If the end brings me out all wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference."