If you don’t have a record, you can kill?

To the editor:

I was in the courtroom Friday when I heard District Judge Donald Mosley give a man probation for killing another man. Many of us came away from there believing that as long as you have a clean record, it's OK to kill someone. Is that what our justice system has come to?

I personally knew the victim, Larry Weiss, for more than 30 years -- both in a work setting and socially. I never heard any language from him such as Raquel Shaw claimed. That's not him. He more than likely would have been telling her that if she didn't care about her own life, think of the two children in the back of her car.

He was a kind, loving and caring man who would never have shouted obscenities at her. But even if he did, there was no excuse for a normal person not to either leave, call the police or scream. She was in a public place. Why did she have to wait for her husband, Stephen, to come down to teach him a lesson?

In my book, she's as guilty as her husband, and somewhere in life they will both get what they deserve.

FATE MARGOLIS

HENDERSON

Halverson saga

To the editor:

God bless District Judge Elizabeth Halverson. I haven't had this much fun following the news in years. This whole surreal, pathetic farce is 10 times funnier than any Jim Carrey movie.

Not only am I entertained, but my high school students have never read the newspaper with such genuine excitement before. We're all anxiously awaiting the next episode in this sordid saga. Each new incident makes us laugh even more than the one before!

So please, let Judge Halverson stay on the bench, just a little bit longer. Yes, it's tragic for those unfortunate enough to appear before her after all this, but with a world stressed out by wars and financial problems, this silly scandal provides a much-needed humorous distraction.

Who do you think should play her in the movie?

Jamie Huston

NORTH LAS VEGAS

Truth and God

To the editor:

In Bruce DeSilva's love/hate review of Christopher Hitchens' new book, "God Is Not Great" (May 20), which excoriates religion, he asks toward the end, "But what is the point of writing such a book?" Mr. DeSilva might as well ask, "What is the point of telling truth?"

Mr. DeSilva next states, "Surely, it will change no minds." But my own experience is that, after 10 years of religious education, my mind was changed forever by an excerpted discourse in one chapter of my Philosophy 150 text. Later I discovered Russell, who helped give strength to my new convictions.

The more often truth is told and the better it is expressed, the more often it will reach minds. And if this helps to keep one child from having nightmares about being taken to heaven before he wakes -- or, worse yet, dying and going to hell for some mortal sin he may have committed and not repented of -- then it certainly will have been worth it.

Bob Hannah

HENDERSON

Falwell tribute

To the editor:

I want to thank you for the column by J.C.Watts on Jerry Falwell (Sunday Review-Journal). It was a pleasant departure from the numerous hatchet jobs that saturated just about every newspaper in the country.

I never gave the man much thought before, so I didn't know too much about him. But from the tone of most of the articles I read, I began asking myself: Was he a child rapist, or what? Why was he so hated?

Thanks for Mr. Watts, who set the record straight. The man just happened to believe in the "word" of the Bible -- literally, and lived accordingly. Apparently that alone was worthy of hateful scorn.

BILL CRAMER

LAS VEGAS

Oil sources

To the editor:

Your Tuesday editorial clarified one of the big reasons why we pay so much at the pump: taxes. Taxes, however, are set months in advance by governing bodies.

So what accounts for prices going up every single day?

And what accounts for one station charging 30 cents or more per gallon from his competitor down the block?

And what accounts for oil companies posting 1,100 percent profits?

And what accounts for the Arabs raising their price per barrel daily?

Greed.

Until we develop a car that runs on water, it is time we tell the "green people" where to get off and begin developing new sources of oil in our country.

Ron Moers

HENDERSON