Remember, going pink is about guys, too

To the editor:

I'd like to extend another round of "Bravo!" for your pink edition Oct. 1 in support of breast cancer awareness. I was especially pleased, after writing in last year to complain, to see two mentions of the fact that men are also victims of this disease. An improvement but, evidently, still not enough.

One lash of a wet noodle goes to your editorial from that edition, "Cancer awareness," for erroneously stating that breast cancer diagnoses and death rates are in decline. Perhaps for women it's true. But in your own front-page story ("Amid pain, patients hold on to hope with help of loved ones," by Paul Harasim), you report the number of new cases in men has risen in the last year, and deaths among males rose from 390 to 450. That number may seem tiny, comparatively speaking, but even one death - male or female - is one too many.

Apparently, if the reaction from the urologist of John Craig Carrell (the male patient Mr. Harasim interviewed for his piece) is to be believed, the fact that men get breast cancer is so unknown that even those in the medical community are surprised by it. That is a sad state of affairs, and more needs to be done to raise awareness.

Paul Thornton

Las Vegas

Fool me once

To the editor:

President Obama's performance in Wednesday's debate mirrored his performance in office over the past four years.

He fooled us once, shame on him. Twice, shame on us.

arthur page

Pahrump

Bad ad

To the editor:

The latest tit for tat between the presidential candidates is Barack Obama's TV spot in response to Mitt Romney's comment on the "47 percent."

Did anyone notice the occupations of the three so-called "47 percenters" in the photographs that appear in the ad? They were of a teacher, a policeman and a few firefighters. Below the photos, the commercial brings up a series of annual salaries: $25,000, $35,000, $45,000. I think the Obama campaign is hoping the audience connects those professions with those wage figures.

Do I have that right? Do they think we believe those wages are accurate for those folks?

I think the $35,000 figure is pretty close to a starting teacher's salary, but those numbers are nowhere near what police and firefighters make in Southern Nevada. No way.

The sad part is that the commercial openly depicts the only people in America who President Obama seems to care about: his union supporters.

Who are they trying to fool? Oh, wait - they're trying to fool me!

Michael Plourde

Las Vegas

Bus fare hike

To the editor:

So the Regional Transportation Commission thought it was a good time to raise bus fares by 8 to 25 percent, in order to bring in an additional $1.3 million in revenue (Sept. 29 Review-Journal). We're in a bad economy, where folks need buses to get to work or look for jobs. Those folks at the RTC are amazingly out of touch.

This is the same RTC board that recently rejected a low-bid bus operation contract that would have saved $50 million, even after the board's professional staff recommended accepting it.

Larry Brown, Steve Ross, Chris Giunchigliani and Lois Tarkanian should be ashamed of themselves for yet again screwing the taxpayers and bus riders of Southern Nevada.

Richard Laird

Las Vegas