Letters

Talking trash: Very entertaining story by Lynh Bui on the Vietnamese nail salons. I love that the nail technicians talk trash about their obnoxious customers, who are only there to save a dollar. Working on people's feet is no picnic. The technicians deserve to have their fun. Nice writing job!
Cuong Nguyen, Glendale

Remember where you came from: Who is this writer Lynh Bui? How can she put down her own people so badly? Not all nail technicians are like what New Times described. You are making us all look bad.

Lynh, did you forget where you came from? I've had a hard life -- 31 years without parents, no family at all in the United States. I came here on a banana boat. My parents got pushed overboard. I was 4 years old when that happened. But I've never forgotten where I came from. Vietnam is my birth country, and the Vietnamese people are my people.

So a word to you, Lynh: Remember where you came from, and stop talking about something (working in a nail salon) that you obviously know nothing about!
Thuy, Phoenix

Have some compassion: I found your story on the nail salons mean. These are hardworking people who have no choice but to work where they do. Now New Times has probably brought the health department down on them, and most of them are above reproach. Sure, there may be a few bad apples, but I found your story an indictment of the whole industry.

Your writer, Lynh Bui, should be ashamed of herself. Her name sounds as if she's of Vietnamese extraction; she should have more compassion for people who, probably like some of her relatives, had to struggle on first coming to America.
Taddie Moore, Phoenix

Doubting Thomas

Machine gunning: I voted for Andrew Thomas because I thought he had guts -- and scruples. Then the first highly publicized things he does are declining to press charges against a vigilante who pulls a gun on some innocent people at a rest stop, and deciding that he hasn't enough evidence to go after the scoundrels in the Maricopa County Elections Department ("All Bark and No Bite," John Dougherty, July 14).

Folks, the elections department doesn't get to decide not to fix voting-machine problems when such a huge error is discovered! An 18 percent increase in the number of votes tallied in a particular race, between the primary and the general election, is a whopping error. What John Dougherty caught the elections people doing -- trying to fool a judge about what happened -- is scandalous!

Knowing the extent of this and doing nothing makes it apparent that Thomas, after only a few months, has turned into a gutless politician out to protect his own political butt.
Steve Rice, Phoenix

Two stooges: Is Maricopa County government a snake pit, or what? There's our fool of a sheriff, Joe Arpaio, and if that isn't bad enough, there's Andrew Thomas. And now we find out that -- on top of these two stooges -- there's the Maricopa County Elections Department.

How can Thomas let elections chief Karen Osborne get away with what happened? Trying to pull the wool over a judge's eyes so he won't make the department look bad right before the general election? That's unbelievable! And then Thomas sees nothing prosecutable about this?

Why would he try to protect the department? As John Dougherty wrote, because Osborne's boss [County Recorder Helen Purcell] is a fellow big-time county Republican.

This voting-machine problem makes me wonder how many other elections were fouled up in this county. Wonder if Sheriff Joke actually won that last primary election, for instance. Maybe there was a huge screw-up there, too?
Name withheld by request

See no evil: I can't believe that Andrew Thomas would see nothing wrong with what Karen Osborne and her elections department did to tamper with an election! No, on second thought, I can believe it; after all, the elections department's part of that fool's asylum called Maricopa County government!

Guess there's no hope that Andy will everprosecute Joe Arpaio for the sheriff's many atrocities. You guys at New Times may as well give up on ever getting Joe out of office for his multitude of sins now that Thomas is around to protect him. Isn't everything just perfect?!
Name withheld by request