Thank you, Coyotes, for honoring our Vegas fallen

I would like to address something the Arizona Coyotes did on Oct. 10 when they faced the Vegas Golden Knights in Las Vegas.

The recent tragedy was still on our minds when the hockey game was played that night. At the end of the game, the Coyotes did something a losing team never does in the opposing arena. They raised their sticks in unison with the Golden Knights on the ice to honor the fallen in our city.

I really appreciate that, and so do a lot of other people. It will always be remembered. That showed a lot of class. Thank you, again.

— Jack Wright, Las Vegas, Nevada

Women need to channel outrage into action against harassment

Harvey Weinstein’s behavior is not a sickness.

He is exhibiting acceptable, everyday behavior inside the patriarchal culture we live in, that gives power to men and devalues women.

Men like him are acting within the existing legal and societal framework. A framework in which women do not own our own bodies, and men feel entitled to use them as they see fit.

There are no serious repercussions for sexual harassment.

It happens every day, everywhere, in varying degrees.

Everywhere men have power over women and are in a position to use it women are at risk.

This will not be solved by simply expressing outrage when sexual harassment publicly surfaces and then looking away until it erupts again. The system needs to be called out for what it is, and changed.

The problem of sexual harassment is a national one, requiring federal attention, leadership and laws.

It’s important to have a conversation about how unacceptable this behavior is, but that will not prevent it from happening, or protect women when it happens again.

There is no constitutional basis for claims of gender-based violence or discrimination.

Women have no rights protected by our Constitution, other than the right to vote.

We need to channel our outrage into action to eliminate gender inequality. We need to pass an Equal Rights Amendment today if we actually want things to change. — Tammy Caputi, Scottsdale

Voltaire could enlighten Trump and Co. on deaths of servicemen

As President Trump and his circle assess how and what’s been said to Contact him: Gold Star families, and how information will be presented on exactly what happened in the Niger ambush that led to the death of four U.S. servicemen, they might want to weigh the words of Voltaire:

“We owe respect to the living; to the dead we owe nothing but the truth.”

— Pat Underwood, Mesa

It would be foolish, America, to abandon the Clean Power Plan

The Clean Power Plan needs to be continued and enhanced.

Clean power will lower health costs, create new careers, give our soils and water supplies time to heal from all the pollution of fossil fuel development and use.

In other words, it will make life better in the long term and the short term.

Abandoning it will be foolish and selfdestructive. Why should we sacrifice the health improvements and economic development for the many for the long term for the short-term profits of the few?

Rationally and morally, the answer is, “We should not.”

— Judy Whitehouse, Phoenix

No one is above the law except Arpaio and the undocumented

In our country, Joe Arpaio is above the law and so is Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos.

Remember her?

Custodian at Golfland. Guilty of identity theft. Deported.

The unfairness was heaped upon this poor woman, wrote E. J. Montini earlier this year.

According to Mr. Montini, Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos was above the law.

But that cannot be right because in this country no person is above the law, wrote E.J. Montini on Oct. 5.

Except the millions of illegal aliens living in this country.

— John V. Daelick, Casa Grande

Let’s move some money from administration into classroom

Schools and teachers have been very vocal about the need for more money for classrooms, insisting that more must be given to schools to help teachers.

However, they never mention that only about 50 percent of all education money actually goes to the classroom; the other 50 percent goes to overhead, administrators and other non-teaching costs.

That means that for every $100 given to schools, only about $50 goes to classrooms.

What if schools were forced to spend only $45 on non-teaching costs, with the extra $5 given to teaching? This extra $5 on top of the original $50 would mean 10 percent extra for teaching!

Can schools be forced to make better use of the money they are given, to actually spend it on teaching rather than on other things? — R. Davidson, Gilbert